What happened recently at Doosan Corporation Mottrol illustrates how inhumane employers can be toward workers. It is truly concerning that this case might not be isolated and there might be similar cases of workers being deprived of basic human dignity. The man, a 47-year-old white-collar worker, was among a group of 20 employees who the firm wanted to fire through “honorary retirement,” a euphemism for early retirement.  He refused to accept the retirement plan, and the management retaliated by

There is an urgent need for economic policymakers to pay more attention to irregular growth in consumer product prices. Over the past year, prices of daily necessities have grown despite drops in raw material prices, according to a consumer advocate group.The Korea National Council of Consumer Organization has compared the consumer prices and rollout costs of 34 processed foods and daily necessities sold by 300 distributors in Seoul.The organization said raw material prices fell 3.2 percent on a

Recent remarks by President Park Geun-hye on her economic outlook are drawing accusations of inconsistency and fickleness. Her assessment on the national economic conditions changed from skepticism early this year to an upbeat mood in early March, and again returned to skepticism this week.In her speech to the public in January, Park said that Korea “could face the woes of mass unemployment and pay huge social and economic costs, as it did during the (1997-98 foreign exchange) crisis.” Park expr

The nation’s three mobile carriers -- SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus -- have been found to have cheated customers in marketing what they called “unlimited” data, voice call and text messaging services.　The Fair Trade Commission has found that the services that the three operators claimed to be unlimited were in fact limited.　For instance, the carriers slowed down data speeds of their unlimited LTE data plans when subscribers exceeded the data caps they set.　They also levied additional charges or re

Another tragic child abuse case was brought to light last weekend, only days after the body of a 7-year-old boy, who died in February due to maltreatment by his stepmother, was found buried in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province.　Police said Saturday they arrested a man in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, in connection with the death five years ago of his 4-year-old stepdaughter.　The stepfather, surnamed Ahn, attributed the death of the child to abuse by her mother, who committed suicide Friday,

With North Korea threatening to continue to conduct nuclear and missile tests, the United States has taken further steps to choke off the funding that allows the rogue state to continue its nuclear and missile provocations.U.S. President Barack Obama issued an executive order Wednesday designed to implement both the U.N. Security Council resolution against the recalcitrant regime and the recently enacted North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act.The latest executive order goes a step furt

The victory of Google’s computer program AlphaGo over Korean Go master Lee Se-dol in the recent “match of the century” came as a shock to many Koreans, whether they were fans of the classic board game or not.Before the match, Lee was expected to win the best-of-five match without difficulty. The gifted Go master himself was confident of a 5-0 victory.But the artificial intelligence program, armed with its powerful self-learning ability, proved to be much stronger than expected. Lee, who represen

It is irreversible. Korea cannot go back to the time when it boasted of its racial homogeneity. This is not simply because we need foreign workers to make up for the workforce shortage caused by the low birthrate and fast aging of society. But what we see around us and hear from experts and statisticians tells us that we Koreans are not yet as receptive to racial diversity as we should be. A recent study released by the Minister of Gender Equality and Family verified the situation. The study, ba

Politicians and the media that follow what they say and do often contrive expressions, some of which draw a nod of assent or raised eyebrows. Massacre is one such expression. The word is commonly used when a large number of members of a major party faction fail to get nomination for elections due to intraparty politics. This is exactly what is happening at the ruling Saenuri Party. Saenuri is not the only party undergoing upheavals over the nomination of candidates for the April 13 general elect

Under such pressing circumstances, parties are naturally leaning toward a selective and concentrated strategy, seeking to strengthen the favor of their traditional support groups instead of eyeing new areas.For President Park Geun-hye and the ruling Saenuri Party, such reliable proponents are mostly senior citizens groups, Christian societies and the military, including former war veterans.“It is a matter of prime interest for the government to create more jobs for senior citizens so that they m

South Korea’s professional baseball league will mark the 35th anniversary of its foundation this year. The league, which is now composed of 10 teams, has elevated the sport’s global competitiveness after six teams made their debut in December 1981.Backed by continuous popularity and rapidly developing play skills of the domestic league, Korea has turned out a number of Major Leaguers, led by Park Chan-ho in the 1990s. In addition, Korea’s national team grabbed gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympics a

The Finance Ministry is set to unveil amendments to regulations on duty-free businesses in the coming weeks. It seems that operators are busy calculating gains and losses from a possible revision of business clauses.Forthcoming changes to regulations governing the duty-free business are sparking both hopes and concerns among key stakeholders, such as Lotte, Shilla, Shinsegae and Doosan.Doubtless, current operators may be worried about a reduction in their share of the pie if the government eased

Despite increased preventive efforts, tragic child abuse cases continue to occur, indicating the need to make more concerted and systematic efforts to tackle the problem. The most recent high-profile case involved Shin Won-yeong, a 7-year-old boy in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, who died on Feb. 2 after three years of horrific abuse by his stepmother. The boy’s body was found buried on a hill in the city last weekend.The tragedy began when the boy’s father brought home the stepmother, surnamed

Banks, brokerages and insurance companies have started to sell individual savings accounts, a new financial product designed to help workers and self-employed people grow their money.An ISA is a versatile account allowing customers to make deposits and at the same time manage a wide range of financial products, such as stock-type or bond-type funds, exchange-traded funds, and equity linked securities.To help people save money, the government will exempt ISAs from taxes on interest income of up t

Factional strife within political parties usually reaches its peak ahead of general elections as each faction strives to get as many nomination tickets as possible. We expected the same for the April 13 election, but the infighting inside the parties -- especially the ruling Saenuri Party -- is really disappointing.Since the nomination process entered full swing, the party did not spend a single day without encountering disputes, accusations, controversies and rumors, with its two factions -- on

The U.S. navy’s nuclear-powered supercarrier USS John C. Stennis docked at Busan Port on Sunday in the latest reinforcement of U.S. military assets aimed at deterring North Korea from provocative acts.The carrier came to South Korea to participate in the allies’ annual joint military exercises, which this year are the largest ever, in the wake of North Korea’s recent nuclear test and long-range ballistic missile launch.Besides the carrier, the U.S. -- in a show of force aimed at deterring the No

The nation’s general election will be held in a month. A total of 300 seats will be filled with lawmakers selected from 253 local constituencies and 47 lawmakers by proportional representation.A key issue is whether the opposition will block the Saenuri Party from gaining an overwhelming majority. The ruling party, which has the majority in the 19th Assembly with 157 seats, has set the target of attaining 180 seats.There are some worries in the divided opposition -- The Minjoo Party of Korea and

South Korea’s two major flag carriers have engaged in a tight rivalry to garner exclusive air traffic rights for the Incheon-Tehran route from the local Transportation Ministry amid exporters’ preparations to tap the lucrative Iranian market.The same sort of competition is seen in industrial sectors, such as oil refining, construction, shipbuilding, logistics, petrochemicals, mobile communications and automobiles. It is even fiercer when it comes to global businesses.A global rush to the Iranian

　In November 2013, President Park Geun-hye held a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Seoul and agreed to cooperate on a Russian-led project to develop a North Korean border port. It was hoped this would set the basis for a railway link from South Korea to Siberia.At the summit, Seoul and Moscow signed a memorandum of understanding for South Korean businesses to participate in the “Rajin-Khasan project” established by North Korea and Russia in 2008 to modernize the 54-kilometer railw

Last year, the government began to introduce a competency-based recruitment system to public institutions as part of its efforts to change Korea’s hiring culture. The new recruitment system is based on the National Competency Standards, a wide-ranging set of standards that define the level of knowledge, skills and aptitudes required to perform each job in more than 800 occupations. The government began to develop the NCS in 2002 to help businesses hire workers based not on their educational back