Government Hiring More Public Officials

The government plans to increase the number of public officials this year.

At a cabinet meeting presided over by Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan at the Central Government Complex in Sejongno, Jongno-gu, Seoul, yesterday, the government passed a revised reorganization measure increasing the number of public officials by 478 from 10 ministries, and an enforcement ordinance revision on prosecutor personnel law.

Considering that the government plans to deal with reorganization measures until next month in which the number of public officials from a total of 19 government agencies will go up by more than 3,500, controversy over “big government” is likely to revive.

Government Efficiency-

The reorganization plan that was passed at the meeting was drawn up by ministries that have called for an increase in the number of public officials at their ministries.

The Ministry of Environment said that 160 public officials should be recruited on the grounds that it needs new employees who will take charge of controlling new chemical materials, restricted materials and banned materials under the revised Harmful Chemical Material Control Law.

The Unification Ministry insisted that it needed to recruit 34 public officials at the three-to-seven level and technical officials because of the increase in the number of inter-Korean exchange cooperation projects.

The Ministry of Construction and Transportation said that it needed 18 more public officials to assist with the real transaction price reporting system in property transactions and the increase in metropolitan traffic system control requirements.

Kim Chang-ho, the head of the Government Information Agency, said, “Increasing the number of public officials or reducing the number of public officials is not important. What is important is how effectively the government copes with state affairs with existing public officials.”

A Big Government Could Never Be Effective-

The situation in which the number of public officials in the incumbent government increases continuously has been expected since the beginning of the inauguration of the Roh administration.

President Roh Moo-hyun has continuously stressed that cutting the number of public officials is not the best solution since he took office, saying, “an effective government is more important than a small government.”

According to a report released by the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs at the end of last year, as of at the end of last July, the number of public officials increased by 6,970 since Roh took office. Separately, the number of police officers and public teachers has increased by 4,220 and 11,232, respectively, resulting in a total increase of 22,422 in the number of public officials for the last three years.

However, the government insists that the total number of public officials has decreased by 7,334 because with Korail privatized, the status of its 29,756 employees was changed from public officials to public corporation employees.

With more people joining the public sector, government personnel expenses have skyrocketed. With the exception of personnel expenses for public teachers that local governments must bear, labor costs for 11,000 more general officials and police officers alone have increased by about 2.14 trillion won for the past two years.

Cho Jeon-hyeok, an economics professor at the University of Incheon, said, “The government has claimed that if a government has efficiency, there is no problem with a big government, but a big government could never be effective,” adding, “Foreign countries, including the U.K. and Japan, have long pushed ahead with small government, and small government is a trend of our time.”

Kang-Myoung Chang tesomiom@donga.com