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Showing posts with label Government civil servants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Government civil servants. Show all posts

Tuesday 19 February 2019

In a tough market, young South Koreans vie for the security of government jobs

Bureaucratic staying power:  While boy band BTS may be going places (no, that Grammy award is not theirs), a government survey shows that one in four middle-school students in South Korea dream of one day becoming not K-pop star or the next Steve Jobs, but that 'adjussi' in the civil service - Reuters
Desire for stability: Many South Koreans worry far more about jobs and the economy than they do about the nuclear threat from North Korea, like this jobseeker at a jobs fair in Seoul last November. — AFP
South Korean Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki, third from left, makes remarks at a meeting on reviving the economy at the government complex in Seoul on Jan. 9, 2019. (YONHAP / EPA-EFE/REX)
In a tough market, young South Koreans dream for the security of government jobs instead of tech innovation and K-pop success.

For more than three years, Kim Ju-hee has been studying full time for an exam that feels like her only shot at a good life in South Korea.

She’s lost count of how many times she’s taken the nation’s civil service exam and failed — though she knows it’s been at least 10. The 26-year-old is not sure what she’ll do if she fails again, so she figures that spending more than eight hours a day studying for her next try, on April 6, makes sense.

Kim hopes to become a government tax clerk, which offers a starting salary of about $17,000, and work for the government until retirement.

“There just aren’t other good jobs,” she said in a phone interview from her home in Seoul, where she lives with her parents.

The most sought-after careers among teenagers and young adults in South Korea, Asia’s fourth-largest economy, are government jobs they can count on to get them to their golden years, not jobs innovating and helping companies grow in the private sector.

Analysts say it’s a symptom of the nation’s slowing economic growth and competition from China in export-driven industries that young South Koreans, about a fifth of the 51 million population, are flocking to what they consider risk-free government jobs not vulnerable to the vicissitudes of the economy. The situation is particularly concerning because it was private companies in sectors like electronics, autos and shipbuilding that fueled South Korea’s rapid growth from one of the world’s poorest nations in the 1960s into an economic powerhouse, analysts say.

Many young people in South Korea say they don’t expect nongovernment job prospects to improve anytime soon despite a host of measures announced by South Korean President Moon Jae-in nearly a year ago to boost employment, including government stipends to companies.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in, right, puts on a safety helmet during his tour of a hydrogen plant in Ulsan, South Korea. Critics have pointed to the lackluster economy to say the president should be focusing on bettering South Korean lives, engaging with North Korea.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in, right, puts on a safety helmet during his tour of a hydrogen plant in Ulsan, South Korea. Critics have pointed to the lackluster economy to say the president should be focusing on bettering South Korean lives, engaging with North Korea. (YONHAP / EPA-EFE / REX)

Unemployment among those ages 15 to 29 reached 11.6% last spring — a level Moon called catastrophic, compared with a jobless rate that hovered between 3% and 4% for the rest of the country’s workforce. Taking into account young adults who are working part-time jobs or studying for an employment exam like Kim, nearly 1 in 4 are out of a job. By comparison, in the U.S., unemployment among those ages 15 to 24 fluctuated between 8% and 9% in 2018. South Korea uses a different age bracket to calculate its youth unemployment because of mandatory two-year military service.

The desire for stability and security starts so young that 1 in 4 middle school students say they dream of one day becoming not a K-pop star or the next Steve Jobs, but a public sector bureaucrat, according to a government survey from 2017.

Many South Koreans worry far more about jobs and the economy than they do about the nuclear threat from North Korea. Conservatives in South Korea who are critical of Moon’s efforts at detente with North Korea point to the economy, saying his focus should be on bettering lives in South Korea, not on engaging with the North.

Competition for South Korea’s 1.07 million government jobs is fierce. In one round of exams Kim took last year, more than 200,000 people applied, and the 4,953 highest-scoring candidates were hired for open positions — an acceptance rate of 2.4%. By comparison, Harvard’s 2018 acceptance rate was 4.59%.

Kim Y.H., 22, who is about to graduate from college in February with a degree in Japanese, recently began studying for a civil service exam to become a customs agent. She said the popularity of public sector jobs was a sign that her generation is pessimistic about South Korea’s economic outlook.

“The country won’t guarantee your future, even if you’re a college graduate,” she said. “So of course we want to go with the most stable path that’s out there.”

There isn’t the expectation that you’ll grow or get good treatment in the private sector. People choose stability over risk or challenge. Joo Won, economist

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One research report published last year estimated that as many as half a million South Koreans were studying for civil service exams full time instead of working. In 2017, the Hyundai Research Institute estimated that the economic cost from the lost work potential of so many young people spending years studying to get government jobs, rather than joining the private workforce, was more than $15 billion.

Moon’s administration has tried to encourage employment among young adults by paying small and medium-sized businesses to hire them, and by offering government-matched savings programs for young workers. He has also pledged to add 174,000 government jobs by 2022 to meet the heightened demand.

Some analysts, however, say the administration’s stopgap measures won’t do much to fix the problems underlying the push for government jobs.

“There isn’t the expectation that you’ll grow or get good treatment in the private sector. People choose stability over risk or challenge,” said Joo Won, one of the authors of the Hyundai study. “There are only so many public sector jobs the government can create. It won’t fix the situation.”

Many analysts point to the widening gap between the behemoth family-owned conglomerates that dominate the South Korean economy, such as Samsung and LG, and other companies. Large corporations including the chaebol, as they are known, accounted for about half of the revenue in South Korea in 2017 but provided only 20% of the jobs in the country, according to the most recent figures available from the government. And while their share of the economy grew, the number of jobs they offered dropped, because of consolidation and downsizing within the corporations amid the economic slowdown.


 
A Samsung flag and South Korean flag outside the Samsung building in Seoul in January. Analysts say part of problem for young job seekers in South Korea is the widening gap between the quality of jobs at family-owned conglomerates like Samsung and the rest of the players.
A Samsung flag and South Korean flag outside the Samsung building in Seoul in January. Analysts say part of problem for young job seekers in South Korea is the widening gap between the quality of jobs at family-owned conglomerates like Samsung and the rest of the players. (Jung Yeon-je / AFP/Getty Images)


That polarisation means stark disparity in income and working conditions between those employed by the conglomerates and those employed elsewhere – with starting salaries at large corporations averaging about US$36,000 (RM 146,370), compared with approximately US$24,000 (RM97,580) at smaller companies – fuelling intense competition for a decreasing number of coveted jobs. “The world was harsher than I thought,” she said.

“If you work for a small or medium-sized company, you become a second-class citizen” with a fraction of the income, long hours and poor benefits, said Kwon Soon-won, a business professor at Sookmyung University in Seoul.

Those without the impressive resumes increasingly needed for jobs at the top companies — internships, perfect grades, proficiency in a foreign language or three — are turning to civil service exams.

Applicants to civil service exams tripled from 1995 to 2016, according to a report by the Seoul Youth Guarantee Center. One online bookseller said it saw a 73.5% increase in sales of civil service exam prep books in 2016 compared with the previous year.

Kwon said South Korea’s high education level is part of the problem — although 70% of those ages 24 to 35 have college degrees, the economy hasn’t kept pace by creating enough quality jobs to meet the increased expectations of those graduates.

Kim Eun-ji, 26, certainly feels that way. With an economics degree from Chung-Ang University, a top-10 college in Seoul, she applied to more than 50 jobs at a wide range of companies big and small but never got past first-round interviews.

“If I think about how many people there are like me in the country, it just feels pointless,” she said, leaving an employment center in Seoul.

She has been studying for a government-issued computerized accounting license to better her employment prospects. Among her friends who graduated around the same time she did in early 2016, only about half are employed full time, Kim said.

Her roommate, who keeps deferring her college graduation, has been making a modest but steady income publishing romance novels online, which strikes her as a more viable option at a steady income than traditional employment.

As a kid, Kim Ju-hee had dreamed of becoming a singer or a teacher. But as an eighth-grader, hearing how hard it was to get a stable job, she set her sights on becoming a bureaucrat.

She’s gotten close to giving up, occasionally applying to other jobs or working part time here and there. But she worries that if she gives up, she’ll have spent years of her life in vain because none of what she studied for the exam will be useful for other jobs.

Victoria Kim

Victoria Kim reports from Seoul, South Korea, for the Los Angeles Times. Since joining the paper in 2007, she has covered the state and federal courts and the Korean community in Los Angeles. Her work has included investigations on the cover-up of the sex abuse scandal in the Los Angeles Archdiocese, killing of unarmed suspects by the Inglewood police, underpaid workers in the garment district and unaccredited law schools in California. She has previously written for the Associated Press in South Korea and West Africa, as well as the Financial Times in New York. Victoria was raised in Seoul and graduated from Harvard University.


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Wednesday 26 September 2018

Still waiting on election promises

Will the Government deliver or are rosy pledges meant to be broken anyway?


PEOPLE are still harping on election manifesto promises which the new coalition has yet to fulfil.

In the wake of the 14th general election, the 100-day manifesto of Pakatan Harapan is being scrutinised.

Does anyone remember the promises made before GE13 or GE12 or any other election before that?

Remember the Penang Bridge toll promises?

Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak came to town and promised free passage across the bridge for motorcycles.

Hours later, the then Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng cleverly upped the ante and promised that the bridge would be completely toll- free.

In Malaysian lingo, we call this ‘wayang’ or political theatrics.

I found it all very entertaining. I looked forward to each retort from the opposite side.

We should not be like children and cry: “But mummy, you promised!”

Now, Pakatan Harapan did fulfil some of their promises.

The Government abolished the goods and services tax and an earnest hunt has begun for those responsible for the 1MDB controversy.

As for the other promises, maybe not yet? Or at a later date?

You cannot fault Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad for being honest. He told the world Pakatan could not fulfil all the promises in its manifesto because it did not expect to win!

So the politicians were just putting on a show and we, the audience, bought front-row tickets to the ‘wayang’.

Dr Mahathir would know. Can anyone remember any of the manifesto promises that were never fulfilled during his previous 22-year tenure or during the last 10 years under Najib?

I don’t and I have been around for more than three decades, starting my working life the year Mahathir came to power in 1981.

If elections were won just on fulfilling manifestos, Barisan would not have been able to rule for 60 years because there has been volumes of unfulfilled promises.

Elections are usually won on negative rather than positive elements.

We have a saying in the newsroom: people wanna read about sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll.

At The Star Online, stories along those lines get astronomical level hits.

In politics, seats tend to be won by candidates who can portray how bad the other guy is!

People want to be shocked by scandals, not lulled by promises.

So we do not have to lament the unfulfilled promises.

It is a universal issue which is not confined to Third World countries as even presidential elections in developed countries are won the same way.

One which comes to recent memory is the United States’ presidential elections in 2016.

Everyone thought Hilary Clinton would triumph but Donald Trump ran a smear campaign on her.

People heard all about her leaked emails and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s case on her.

Both candidates spent millions of dollars taking out advertisements in newspapers and on television.

The focus was more on showing how bad the other candidate would be for the country rather than what they would do if elected.

So for all those who are still hung up on Pakatan promises, forget it.

You can shout until the cows come home and nothing is going to happen.

But they still have four years to make good on their promises, before power comes back to us.

They could be saving the best promises for last. Maybe?

Credit: Pinang points R. Sekaran

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Saturday 4 August 2018

New Malaysia's civil servants must keep it civil of multi-racialism !

Brave new world: The civil service needs to get used to the New Malaysia approach while our ministers need to snap out of the Opposition mode and get down to work.

Wake Up Malaysian Civil Servants: Duty Beckons

by dinobeano
August 16, 2018 Wake Up Malaysian Civil Servants: Duty Beckons by Dr Amar-Singh HSS http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com These Civil Servants pledge to feather their own nest We need to get rid of the culture of censuring those in the civil service who speak up when they see wrong being done. I found the courage to write this […]

Keeping it civil: The civil service makes up the backbone of any nation, yet the concept of its implementation continues to elude some of the powers that be.



IT’S often said that ministers come and go, but civil servants stay forever. And the good old government machinery runs as before, a fact some of our new ministers will probably be clued into by now.

Ministers who have no experience at state government level may have pre-conceived notions of the privileges they enjoy, like unlimited authority and knowing what they decree would suffice to overrule the bureaucrats.

And that is the biggest mistake they could make as newcomers to Putrajaya, because nothing exemplifies shooting oneself in the foot more than putting down civil servants – they run the ministries, after all.

Making its rounds on the grapevine these days is how some ministers put down their secretaries-general at meetings, believing they know better, or quite possibly, that they can do a better job at improving the performance of their charges.

Some of our ministers were probably not born when British sitcom Yes, Minister (which later became Yes, Prime Minister) aired on BBC Two, and on RTM, from 1980 to 1984.

Set principally in the private office of a British Cabinet Minister in the fictional Department of Administrative Affairs in Whitehall, it follows the ministerial career of the Right Honourable Jim Hacker.

In it, he attempts, or rather, struggles to formulate and enact laws or effect departmental changes and meets with resistance from the civil service, in particularly his Permanent Secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby.

The obstructions (sabotages, some would say) were often carried out so deftly that the minister would often rarely know what hit him or possess a trail of evidence to prove insubordination.

In fact, the delays (such as total rejection of policy) were cited to impress upon the minster that the shenanigans were for the benefit of his political mileage.

But of course, the sitcom was totally fictional and in real life, not all civil servants could get away like that.

Respected banker and commentator Tan Sri Dr Munir Majid wrote that Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad had put together a Cabinet with a mix of races and genders, and a range of ages, which is unprecedented in the political governance of our country. However, except for a handful of ministers, the Cabinet falls short on experience.

Dr Munir urged Pakatan ministers to get out of “Opposition mode” so they can function and deliver with all the advice and support available.

“They would need to get the government machinery – the civil service – to implement their decisions effectively.

“Here, there is another problem. The largely Malay civil service is not used to having political masters committed to a multi-racial Malaysia and a no-nonsense regime,” he wrote.

That simply means our ministers, who have been used to merely delivering fiery speeches, now need to roll up their sleeves and get down to work and show the fruits of their labour. They can only blame the ills and corruption of the previous government to an extent.

A few ministers, and even the Attorney-General Tommy Thomas, must now grapple with all the documents being in Bahasa Malaysia, unlike in the private sector where the medium of communication is English.

Their staff would most likely be entirely Malay, except for their aides, who are political appointees. Directives would be issued in an entirely different way, obviously reflected by the work culture and style of communication.

That is just how the civil service works, so, they simply need get used to it. Of course, stories of all this being a culture shock for some have surfaced recently.

Dr Munir reminded that “there is still some way to go to arrive at a New Malaysia in terms of multi-racialism. After two generations of ‘Malay First’ and subsequently ‘Malay and Muslim First’ political ethic, there is a mountain to climb to make it New Malaysia.”

The reality is that about 75% of the Malay electorate in GE14 voted for Umno or PAS, in comparison to 95% of the Chinese voters who voted for Pakatan Harapan (an increase from the 85% who supported the now-defunct Pakatan Rakyat coalition in 2013). About 70% - 75% of Indians voted for PH, the figures show.

It has been reported that only 25% - 30% of Malays voted for PH, according to figures from Merdeka Centre. Apparently, 35% - 40% of Malays voted for Barisan Nasional while 30% - 33% supported PAS.

The findings displayed that although a higher percentage of Malays voted for Pakatan Harapan in Johor and in west coast states such as Melaka and Negri Sembilan, the coalition’s overall Malay support was diminished by its weak performance in Kelantan and Terengganu.

It’s no secret that as the new government reaches its 100-day mark, some ministers are still struggling to assemble their offices.

It’s just as well that some have yet to meet the press or make statements, because they are still learning to juggle the workload as others continue their scramble to find the ideal personnel.

The job has been so overwhelming that they have been unable to meet their key officers to solidify plans and directions.

With no appointments in sight, some staff are wondering if they are being snubbed, or simply that the ministers are too busy with other engagements. It doesn’t help that they don’t even reply messages.

But the civil service needs to accept that this is New Malaysia. There is no turning back. The culture of openness, accountability, engagement and success must take centre stage, with any form of prejudice left by the wayside.

The strategy of using race and religion to stir emotions seems hollow now.

Millions of ringgit were stolen from the people by those in power, and as the facts have revealed, they weren’t Chinese, Indians or Christians, contrary to what these politicians still want the Malays to believe.

And certainly, the civil servants who sniffed out the moral decay under their very noses knew exactly what was happening.

Clean, trustworthy and competent ministers, and a loyal, non-corrupt and efficient civil service will make Malaysia great.

After all, as the saying goes, it doesn’t matter what colour the cat is, as long it catches the mice.

In this context, what’s important is surely them being good Malaysians.

Wong Chun Wai

Wong Chun Wai

Wong Chun Wai began his career as a journalist in Penang, and has served The Star for over 27 years in various capacities and roles. He is now the group's managing director/chief executive officer and formerly the group chief editor.

On The Beat made its debut on Feb 23 1997 and Chun Wai has penned the column weekly without a break, except for the occasional press holiday when the paper was not published. In May 2011, a compilation of selected articles of On The Beat was published as a book and launched in conjunction with his 50th birthday. Chun Wai also comments on current issues in The Star

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Wednesday 4 November 2015

2 structures collapse due to incompetent engineers and irresponsible officer of MPPP


Three slammed over finwall tragedy

GEORGE TOWN: An incompetent engineer, a irresponsible one and a neglectful senior civil servant have come under fire in the report on the collapse of the finwall from the top of the 21-storey Menara Umno building in Jalan Macalister here.

A car driver and a lorry attendant died in the incident on June 13, 2013. Several vehicles and property were damaged. The body of the motorist was never been recovered.

The Commission of Enquiry, headed by Datuk Yeo Yang Poh, recommended that the Board of Engineers take action against finwall design engineer Lee Ah Yew and Dr Gerry Wong Kong Ming who signed and submitted the engineering drawings to the then Penang Municipal Council.

The report stated that (the then) North-East district officer Azizi Zakaria ought to have played a central role as the person in charge of emergency responses under ‘Arahan 20’, but had totally ignored and abandoned his duties.

It said Azizi was unfit to hold his post and “should have the honour of resigning, failing which he should be removed from office.”

Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng distributed copies of the 312-page “Report of The Commission of Enquiry into the Failure of Two Civil Structures in the State of Penang” to pressmen yesterday.

The report also details investigations into the ramp collapse at the Batu Maung Interchange of the second Penang bridge on June 6, 2013.

On the Menara Umno building, the report said the collapse of the finwall was due to “grossly inadequate design.”

The finwall, which was called “a lightning arrester” by the media, is a reinforced-concrete structure weighing about 200 tonnes.

“The engineer Lee has no experience in designing a slender cantilever column on top of a tall building.

“He committed multiple serious errors when designing the structure,” it said.

On Dr Wong, the report said that he signed and submitted the engineering drawings to the council without checking.

“As such, the errors and inadequacies in the design of the finwall are deemed to be his; for which he must bear equal responsibility.”

The report said Azizi’s dereliction of duty was “so complete that it is difficult to imagine anyone who could have done worse”.

“His lack of remorse or contrition when he testified before the Commission and his unabashed downplay of his total neglect of duty are very disturbing,” it said.

Lee and Dr Wong could not be reached for comments. It is learnt that Azizi has retired.

BY K. SUTHAKAR and CHRISTOPHER TAN The Star/Asia News Network

Inquiry into 2013 mishap at Menara Umno in Jalan Macalister blames engineers



GEORGE TOWN: The Commission of Inquiry into the failures of two civil structures in Penang has come down hard on the engineer who designed the fin wall atop the 21st storey of Menara Umno in Jalan Macalister.

The engineer, Lee Ah Yew, was "grossly incompetent and grossly negligent" and had committed multiple serious errors, which resulted in the reinforced-concrete structure weighing about 200 tonnes collapsing on June 13, 2013.

In its report, the three-member commission headed by Datuk Yeo Yang Poh said Monday that Lee, who designed the fin wall in 1995, was then a graduate engineer with no experience in designing a "slender" cantilever column on top of a tall building.

The commission has recommended that the Board of Engineers (BEM) initiate disciplinary action against Lee.

It said the board should also take disciplinary action against Dr Gerry Wong Kong Ming, the submitting engineer who signed and submitted the engineering drawings to the local planning authorities.

"As such, the errors and inadequacies in the design of the fin wall are deemed to be his; for which he must bear equal responsibility, though he signed them without checking," it said.

The commission rapped the North-East district officer Azizi Zakaria for abandoning his duties as the person in-charge of emergency responses under Arahan 20.

"His dereliction of duty was so complete and that it is difficult to imagine anyone who could have done worse.

"Encik Azizi's lack of remorse and contrition when he testified before the commission and his unabashed downplay of his total neglect of duty, are very much disturbing,” the report stated.

In the incident, the fin wall collapsed and hit a passing car and buried it (together with its driver) beneath the ground. A lorry attendant nearby was also killed. Several vehicles and properties were damaged.

The commission also submitted its findings into the ramp which collapsed on June 6, 2013 at the Batu Maung interchange leading to the second Penang Bridge.

BY K. SUTHAKAR/ The Star/Asia News Network

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