Koo Yun-cheol vows to put youth employment first amid rising job market uncertainty

The government has identified May's decline in employed workers as a warning signal for the labor market and is mounting a pan-government response with youth employment recovery as its top priority.

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Koo Yun-cheol, presiding over the Emergency Economic Headquarters Meeting and Economic Ministers' Meeting at the Government Seoul Building on Friday, said uncertainty in employment conditions is growing as the number of employed workers turned negative in May. "We will place the highest policy priority on improving youth employment and spare no effort to that end," he said.

The government said it will closely analyze detailed employment trends by demographic group and industry sector, moving swiftly to address areas requiring immediate action. Related ministries will strengthen on-site inspections through inter-agency cooperation, and the government will actively identify medium- and long-term institutional reform tasks. Measures to expand employment-related incentives are also under review.

Koo said the government would push ahead with speed on the core tasks of the Youth New Deal initiative announced in April, while actively identifying additional areas for improvement.

Koo assessed the current economic situation, saying the economy is showing solid growth but that price and supply chain pressures from the war in the Middle East, along with volatility in exchange rates and financial markets, continue to persist. "We will stay especially vigilant on prices and employment, work to minimize the impact of the Middle East war, and do everything in our power to stabilize people's livelihoods," he added.

On the government's ultra-innovation economic projects aimed at securing world-class technology and capturing global markets, Koo said a commercialization technology roadmap for next-generation power semiconductors would be completed in June, with large-scale research and development planning linked to demand-side companies set to begin.

For small modular reactors, the government will pursue early commercialization with urgency, drawing on the Special Act on the Promotion and Support of SMR Development scheduled to take effect in September. The government also said it would actively support technology development and field demonstration for on-sensor AI — which integrates sensor and AI technology — actuators for humanoid robots, and secondary batteries.

"The future growth engines needed for an economic leap forward must start from the regions," Koo said, announcing that starting next week he would personally travel across the country's "five poles and three special zones" to identify region-specific growth drivers and provide systematic support.

Amid a series of large-scale casualties — including a fire at Daejeon Anjeong Industrial and an explosion at Hanwha Aerospace's Daejeon plant — the government announced at Friday's meeting that it would launch a sweeping fire safety inspection of factories and warehouses nationwide.