Gov’t to allocate extra budget to tackle youth unemployment

A huge chunk of a proposed extra budget will be used to tackle the country’s chronic youth unemployment as well as to help those who have lost their jobs in the wake of corporate restructuring, a senior government official said Tuesday.

“The government will spend 4 trillion won ($3.75 billion) to help young people find jobs and set up their own businesses,” Kim Yong-jin, deputy finance minister, said in a meeting with scholars and other government officials.

The supplementary budget plan is to be submitted to the National Assembly this month and will be made without sales of state bonds, he stressed.

Last month, the government unveiled a set of measures, including bolder financial and tax incentives and the use of an extra budget, to tackle the jobless rate among young people.

The measures center on extending direct financial and tax incentives to young jobseekers.