President Park Geun-hye addressed the nation yesterday, asking the people’s support for the administration’s reform drive.

Her nationally televised address, the first since she addressed the country in May last year following the Sewol ferry sinking, and fourth since assuming office, came near the halfway point of her five-year presidency.

The 25-minute speech was, in a way, a continuum of Park’s inaugural speech which outlined economic revival, people’s happiness, and flourishing of culture as the three goals of her administration. Half way into her tenure, Park appears to have sought to remind people of those goals and plead urgency of the administration’s labor, education, public sector and financial sector reforms aimed at reviving the economy. Promising to accelerate the pace of reform, she asked Koreans to share the pain that the reforms entail.

Park emphasized the need for labor market reforms, which she said would lead to jobs. “Without labor reforms, there will be no solution to young people’s despair and nonregular workers’ pain,” she said. Noting that the unemployment rate among young people stands at over 10 percent, Park said that the problem will worsen when the retirement age is extended next year and the baby boomers’ children graduate college in large numbers in the next few years.

The president also called for wider adoption of the wage peak system as the retirement age is extended. This would enable more jobs to open up for young people, she explained.

The economy was foremost on Park’s mind — the word “economy” appeared 37 times in her speech while the word “reform” was repeated 33 times. Judging by the speech, the economy will be the central issue during the remainder of her administration.

Park did not offer an apology for the government’s inept handling of the recent Middle East respiratory syndrome outbreak. The Blue House had said that the economy was the focus of the address and as such the MERS issue would not be raised.

However, MERS is indeed closely tied to the economy — it is estimated to have resulted in economic losses of 10 trillion won. A mention of the outbreak and an apology for the government’s poor response would not have been out of place; in fact, it would have been entirely appropriate.

Park’s address to the nation was an attempt to connect with the people, given that she is often criticized for poor communication. She did a fine job of laying out her plan for the country and asking for people’s support. Yet, something was missing.

The Blue House knows that the people would like an apology for MERS response, that the people are curious about who would receive the special pardons, and that the people want some answers about the National Intelligence Service’s hacking program. Yet, Park did not address any of these issues. Nor did she take questions from reporters seated in front of her.

It was empathy that was lacking in Park’s speech.