By Lee Chi-dong
Staff Reporter

The government has set a goal of creating two million jobs over the next five years in a bid to curb soaring unemployment rates.

More than 80,000 new jobs will be added to the payrolls of the public sector this year alone.

Government officials expect a total of 1.5 million jobs to be created by 2008 as long as the economy grows by 5 percent annually. The officials said on Thursday a single percentage point hike in gross domestic product would create about 60,000 new jobs.

``The major task is to create 500,000 jobs artificially over the coming five years, while maintaining economic growth of 5 percent,’’ Kim Dae-you, director general of the Ministry of Finance and Economy said.

The government plans to increase the service industry as a portion of GDP, as the sector has great potential to create jobs. The ratio stood at only 54 percent in the country in 2001, far below the 77 percent in the United States, the 69 percent in Japan, and the 73 percent in France.

The government also plans to provide small-and medium-sized firms with 1.5 million won in financial aid per quarter for hiring every one new employee.

The measures were agreed on at a meeting of 50 social and economic leaders that President Roh Moo-hyun chaired at Chong Wa Dae.

The participants reached a consensus that the economy is increasingly losing job creation capacity as a result of slow economic growth, technology advances, and a changing industrial structure.

The economy recorded an average of 8.6 percent growth in the 1980s and 6.2 percent in the 1990s, but the rate fell to 4.7 percent between 2001 and 2002.

They pointed out that businesses hold the key to the creation of jobs for full-time workers, although the government can make part-time jobs through stopgap measures.

lcd@koreatimes.co.kr