Unemployment To Rise By 300,000

Lee Ki-ho, minister for labor affairs, said Monday, that it is expected that a total of 300,000 workers will lose their jobs in 1998 when the IMF guidelines go into full operation, with around 200,000 due to bankruptcies and layoffs. He commented that if the economic growth rate stays at 3% for the year, the unemployment rate will rise to 4% or 900,000 workers, but if growth falls lower than that then the number of people out of work will reach over 1 million.

Korea is different from other advanced countries as people are not used to high unemployment figures so the social impact will be large. The government however is preparing cushioning measures to deal with the problem.