[Editorial] Mud-Slinging Angers Unemployed Breadwinners

A couple of days ago in Seoul, a 40-year-old male breadwinner strangled his nine-year-old daughter to death, before attempting suicide. Awakened by the noise, his wife immediately dialed 911, and the father was arrested and indicted. After having been laid-off earlier in his career, he started his own business. The business, unfortunately, went belly up, landing him in severe debt. He tried to get another job, but to no avail. Out of desperation, he committed this horrible crime.

The National Statistical Office tallied that as of the third quarter this year, the heads of 2.6 million households were unemployed. The figure constitutes 16% of the total households in Korea, or one in six families. The office first surveyed the data in 2003. Unfortunately, since then, each new quarter has set a new record. In the past year alone, another 180,000 breadwinners lost their jobs. The mercury has fallen sharply with the winter getting closer, and we are seeing increasing numbers of breadwinners freezing to death on the streets.

Of course, family members can chip in, or some pension plans can help the families survive, but it’s not about willingness. Usually, the breadwinner is the most skilled laborer in a family. When the household head is unable to find work, how could the remaining family members do so? When a woman leads a family, she is likely to be unemployed or do odd jobs in two-thirds of cases.

The job market is tough for young people as well. According to the Ministry of Education, only half of college graduates settle into permanent jobs. In other words, only 48.7% of students graduating with college degrees succeed in finding jobs. The rest are making ends meet by doing odd jobs or receiving family support. How can families and college graduates improve the quality of their lives without stable jobs?

Oblivious to reality, the Roh administration is beating the drum, claiming that our living standards are almost level with those of advanced countries, which leads to more disappointment for the disadvantaged. Such an approach is typical of the Roh administration; and let’s leave it at that. But what hope can the next administration offer us? Looking at the ongoing presidential campaign, we cannot expect hope; rather, we might have to prepare ourselves for straits even more dire than those of today. With the election just 20 days away, candidates are still engaged in political mud-slinging, not bothering to tell us of their promised improvements to our lives. In an interview with the Dong-A, yesterday, Standing Commissioner Kim Ho-yeol of the National Election Commission lamented, “Mud-slinging poses the gravest problem. Young people should grill candidates about how to advance our economy and create more jobs.”