As far as headline numbers are concerned, South Korea’s job figures for August are not so bad. In fact, the number of employed people went up last month from a year earlier. But beneath the upbeat data lies a problematic trend that continues to keep policymakers on edge. According to data released by Statistics Korea on Wednesday, the country added 268,000 new jobs in August, increasing the total of employed people to 28.67 million. The new job additions mark a much welcome rebound. In Jul

The first-trial court trying the case of former President Moon Jae-in's Cheong Wa Dae staff allegedly intervening in the June 2018 Ulsan mayoral election is finally set to pronounce a ruling -- three years and 10 months after the prosecution’s indictments. The prosecution on Monday asked the court to sentence former Ulsan Mayor Song Cheol-ho and an opposition party lawmaker, Hwang Un-ha, to six and five years behind bars, respectively, in connection with the case. The prosecution also

In the past decade, the South Korean government has been trying to locate and help people struggling with extreme poverty and diseases outside of the social security net. But the system is still fraught with loopholes, resulting in more tragic and unattended deaths. On Friday, a woman in her 40s was found dead alongside a young child, unconscious, in a rented residential villa in Jeonju, North Jeolla Province. The police said Monday the direct cause of the woman’s death is presumed to be a

North Korea's threat of underwater nuclear attacks, which are difficult to detect beforehand, is looming large. The North disclosed through state media Friday that it launched its first “tactical nuclear attack submarine” that can fire nuclear missiles underwater. Photos North Korea disclosed reveal 10 vertical launch tubes for short and medium-range ballistic missiles. The submarine is presumed to be capable of firing not only ballistic missiles tipped with nuclear warheads but

China’s moves to place restrictions on two fields -- one on exports of urea for fertilizer and the other on the use of Apple’s iPhone for government workers -- have sent a chill down the spine of South Korean policymakers and businesspeople. Both regulations have not affected Korean exporters and consumers yet, but given the past case in which China caught the country off guard with its curb on urea solution exports, much caution and proactive preparations for export control on other

Kim Man-bae, a key figure in the high-profile Daejang-dong development scandal, was found to have fabricated news stories unfavorable to the t​hen-People Power Party candidate Yoon Suk Yeol before the 2022 presidential election. The scandal concerns a project to develop Daejang-dong in Seongnam City as apartment complexes. The project was planned and executed under then-Mayor Lee Jae-myung, who is leader of the Democratic Party of Korea. Kim allegedly received astronomical returns on investment

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s rare expected trip to Russia sometime next week is sending loud alarms to government officials in South Korea and the United States, as Kim is seen pushing for an arms deal with President Vladimir Putin, a scenario that will complicate the already thorny geopolitical situation on and possibly beyond the Korean Peninsula. Kim is now expected to travel from Pyongyang by armored train to Vladivostok on the Pacific coast of Russia, where he would attend the Ea

Youn Mee-hyang's qualifications as a lawmaker are questionable. The independent lawmaker attended an event Friday in Tokyo organized by the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, a pro-North Korean group of Zainichi residents in Japan, abbreviated as Chongryon, to commemorate Korean victims of the Kanto Massacre in the wake of the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake. Chongryon Chairperson Ho Jong-man, who was granted the title of "hero" by North Korea, and other leaders of the

Tens of thousands of schoolteachers in South Korea held a massive rally in front of the National Assembly in Seoul on Monday to mourn the recent deaths of fellow teachers who had suffered from extreme stress due to abusive parents and unruly students. The rally in Seoul was held along with similar mourning events across the nation, and some school classes finished early since as many as a thousand teachers in a single local education district took the day off to join the collective action. The c

Democratic Party of Korea leader Lee Jae-myung's hunger strike is irrational and unjustifiable. He suddenly declared he would go on an indefinite hunger strike on Thursday, just a day before the National Assembly opened its regular session. Whenever he opens his mouth, out come concerns about the livelihoods of the public. But in the Assembly, where the party he leads holds a legislative majority, he behaves like he does not care. The demands he made are absurd. He demands three things from

Setting a fresh record is usually a positive development. But it’s disheartening when it comes to South Korea’s dismal birth rate, which is breaking one record after another -- in a downward direction. According to population data released by Statistics Korea on Wednesday, only 249,000 babies were born in 2022, down 11,000 from a year earlier. It is the first time the figure fell below 250,000 since the agency began compiling data in 1970. The latest figure comes as a big challenge f

The government budget proposal for 2024 which passed the Cabinet meeting Tuesday shows the Yoon Suk Yeol administration's will to recover its financial soundness through retrenchment. Next year's expenditure budget amounts to 656.9 trillion won ($497 billion), 2.8 percent or 18.2 trillion won more than this year's. The on-year increase rate is the lowest since 2005 -- a big difference from the annual budget growth average of 8.7 percent for five years of the previous Moon Jae-in a

South Korea’s major telemedicine service operators announced they would shutter their operations, an inevitable outcome resulting from a mix of strict government restrictions and strong pressure from the medical sector. Telemedicine was hailed as a promising field, offering innovative remote medical services for patients. When telemedicine was temporarily allowed in 2020 to fight COVID-19, few expected that it would become very popular. During the three-year period, a total of 36.61 millio

The reality of a government grant program for elementary, middle and high school education, exposed as a result of a 10-month inspection by the top audit agency, is extremely deplorable. The Board of Audit and Inspection disclosed the results of its inspection into the program on Thursday. Grants to the nation's 17 offices of education and schools in their districts were so excessive that much of them were wasted, for example, on an array of cash welfare benefits and interest-free loans to

South Korea’s growth momentum is weakening. The real income of households is dropping, even as their debt is mounting. The economic debacle of China, which is the country’s biggest trading partner, is deepening. Although both the nation’s internal and external economic situations face more and more obstacles, there is one strangely upbeat sector here: the real estate market, where speculative investors sense property prices are close to hitting their bottom. In a country where

Gwangju Metropolitan City is constructing a park at the cost of 4.8 billion won ($3.61 million) to honor Jeong Yul-seong, who composed a song for the People’s Liberation Army of China and a marching song for the North Korean People’s Army. Jeong, a Gwangju native, received a hero’s welcome in both China and North Korea. He entered a Korean independence fighter training academy in Nanjing, China, and later joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1939. After Korea gained independen

As Japan plans to start releasing treated radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the sea, the South Korean government reassured the public of its safety. However, people remain deeply concerned about the water’s impact amid intensifying political wrangling over the discharge. On Tuesday, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Japan will begin to discharge around 1.34 million metric tons of Fukushima water Thursday. The move came after the Interna

As the National Pension Fund draws nearer to depletion, reforming the National Pension Scheme has become an urgent matter. However, the government and lawmakers kept putting off reforms out of fear of the backlash it will provoke. It is about time they decided. A government advisory panel on national pension reforms is said to have reached a conclusion that contributions must be raised and the pension age postponed, but the income replacement rate maintained as it is. This means that workers sho

Another brutal crime was committed in broad daylight in Seoul last week, resulting in the death of an innocent victim. With a mix of grief and outrage gripping the nation, people are increasingly concerned about the compromised public safety. According to police, the suspect, only identified by his family name Choi, attacked a woman with brass knuckles before raping her in a remote area at a park in Sillim, Gwanak-gu, Seoul, Thursday. She was taken to a hospital for treatment but died from her i

Leaders of South Korea, the United States and Japan opened a new era in their partnership through their landmark summit last week. They will hold trilateral summits and meetings between foreign ministers, defense ministers, national security advisers at least annually and also launch annual meetings of commerce and industry ministers. They formed a quasi-alliance in which they agreed to consult one another and act as one in the fields of diplomacy, security, economy and technology. Diplomacy and