President Moon Jae-in on Monday urged lawmakers to approve supplementary budget plans, stressing the government’s role in job creation in his first parliamentary address.

“Today, I stand here to explain the reasons for drawing up the supplementary budget plans and its content, to ask for the understanding and cooperation of lawmakers,” Moon said at the National Assembly’s main chamber in Yeouido, Seoul. Cheong Wa Dae said he was the nation’s first president to address the legislature over an extra budget.

Last week, the government submitted an 11.2 trillion won ($9.95 billion) supplementary budget for parliamentary review, which according to the presidential office would create 110,000 new jobs. The prospects of its passage, however, appear bleak, due to the objection of three opposition parties, which control a majority of seats at the National Assembly. 

Before Moon’s speech at 2 p.m., two of the three -- the People’s Party and Bareun Party -- agreed with the ruling Democratic Party of Korea to participate in the bill’s deliberation. The main opposition Liberty Korea Party had decided on a boycott.

Presenting data charts and graphs on the screen, Moon emphasized the government’s sound fiscal conditions and the necessity for it to intervene in the labor market, saying the current youth unemployment problem has the potential to become a national crisis.

Allowing the situation to continue would amount to “dereliction of duty” on the part of the government and political parties, he said, reiterating that the supplementary budget does not require new treasury bonds or tax hikes.

“The fundamental cause of the people’s difficulties is jobs. During the election campaign, all of us (presidential candidates) differed on the methods, but agreed that creating good jobs is the most urgent task for our economy,” Moon said, citing the high unemployment rate recorded in April.

According to figures from Statistics Korea released in May, the official youth unemployment rate came to a record high of 11.2 percent in April. The real unemployment rate, which includes part-time workers seeking full-time employment and those who have given up looking for jobs, came to 23.6 percent.

“There is only one answer. It is creating more good jobs. Growth without employment must be stopped. There must be a paradigm shift, from jobs being created as a result of growth to achieving growth by creating jobs,” Moon said.

According to the plans, the 11.2 trillion won supplementary budget would be raised from an 8.8 trillion won tax revenue increase expected this year, 1.1 trillion won carried over from last year’s budget and 1.3 trillion won of state-operated funds.

On the details of the plans, Moon said the focus is on aiding young people and that the government would take a two-track approach: increasing the number of civil servants as well as helping young people find jobs and open businesses.

He added that the aim of hiring more civil servants is to improve safety, welfare and education services, as well as directing more personnel to public services lacking manpower.

Moon once again singled out firefighters, citing the lack of personnel and difficult working conditions. His plans to create 810,000 public sector jobs include hiring 19,000 additional firefighters -- whose tasks include responding to medical emergencies in Korea -- during his term.

In all, Moon said 12,000 additional civil servants including police officers, noncommissioned officers, postal workers and those involved in livestock management would be hired.

In addition, social service workers would be increased by about 24,000, he added.

The plans would also see the government providing the salary of one worker for three years for every two individuals newly hired by small and medium-sized enterprises. The state fund aiding young people in launching businesses would be increased and a new 300 billion won fund would be created for helping failed entrepreneurs recover.

To facilitate women’s economic participation, maternity leave subsidies would be doubled for the first three months and the number of state-run child care facilities would be doubled to 360. As part of related plans, 5,000 additional child care staff would be hired and women would be provided with career and business consultations.

By Choi He-suk (cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)