Amid gloomy employment figures.... the country's top economic policymaker is stressing job creation remains the the government's number one priority... and that it'll do whatever it can to turn things around for the better.
Kim Ji-yeon reports.
Responding to the dismal employment figures for January,... South Korea's Minister of Economy and Finance said he feels heavy responsibility and will make job creation a top priority in state affairs.
Attending a meeting on Wednesday, Minister Hong Nam-ki said various economic factors at home and abroad are tough,... but since job creation is such a vital factor in improving people's livelihoods,... the Moon administration will do everything in its power to create a combined 150-thousand new jobs by the end of this year.

"Most of the increases in the number of newly-added jobs last month... is due to the high base effect from the same period last year. It's a serious situation given that growth in the number of new jobs for the past two months has been in the single-digit range."

The minister said newly-added jobs in the service sector have been recording double-digit growth,... a silver lining compared to the employment slump seen in the manufacturing sector.
He said the government will strive to strengthen the sector's competitiveness in the first half of the year.
That includes measures to create or expand industrial semiconductor clusters by March.
Among the measures to boost jobs, the minister said the government will add an extra two-thousand public sector jobs on top of the 23-thousand it had originally planned to create.
It will also shore up the services sector, particularly in the areas of health, distribution, contents and tourism.
Kim Ji-yeon, Arirang News.