South Korea Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon said today that the government is going to raise fiscal spending to counter the weakening of the job market and economic polarization. 2019 budget spending will increase far more than the original plan of 5.7%. The spending will be on supporting research and development of advance artificial intelligence, big data and hydrogen vehicles.
Kim described that the job market is “the worst since financial crisis”. And “the government’s big challenge is how to support the job market through fiscal policies.” Additionally. “Polarization issue is very perplexing”, and “economic growth and innovation would be difficult to sustain without addressing the issue”.
Earlier, the government cut job growth forecast to 180k this year, down from 320k prior estimate.
