Some 952,000 Koreans were unemployed in March, up 142,000 compared to the same period last year. The number of jobless Koreans has been rising for six months from 722,000 back in September. Mining and manufacturing output has increased, and stock prices are soaring, showing improvements in certain economic indicators, but the employment situation is getting worse.

Conditions on the job market are not expected to improve any time soon. Hiring trends follow economic fluctuations. When economic conditions worsen, businesses first cut wages and working hours. If that does not help, they lay people off. Even if the economy improves, businesses initially try to make full use of existing staff and increase hiring only when they are confident of an economic recovery. That is why Korea is certain to see the number of jobless people swell past a million in April or May.

But we are not expected to see unemployment levels rise past 1.8 million and the jobless rate soar to 8.8 percent like they did during the Asian financial crisis. The Korea Labor Institute says if the economy shrinks 2 percent this year, then the number of unemployed people will rise to 1.004 million during the first half and decrease to 897,000 in the second. Looking at such projections, the next few months appear to be the critical period.

The problem is that low-income families are hit hardest. Looking at the employment figures in March, the number of regular jobs based on one-year or longer contracts rose by 276,000. But non-regular jobs based on short-term contracts, of between one month to less than a year, decreased by 83,000, while the number of jobs based on contracts of less than a month fell by 112,000. A total of 277,000 jobs at restaurants and small stores also disappeared over the same period. This means small shop and restaurants owners and non-regular workers were the ones pushed out onto the streets.

Many of these people are not eligible for unemployment benefits and do not have a lot of money saved up. They face the prospect of sinking rapidly into poverty. This is what is different now than during the Asian financial crisis, when full-time middle-aged and retirement-age workers were forced to quit. The number of unemployed people may be smaller this time, but the situation can be said to be worse.

Government measures to create jobs must focus on easing the suffering of these low-income people. The government needs to create many short-term jobs as part of efforts to bolster the social safety net, and the National Assembly must hurry and ratify the revised supplementary budget.