![Minister of Employment and Labor Kim Young-hoon speaks at a Cabinet meeting chaired by President Lee Jae Myung at Cheong Wa Dae on Tuesday. [Yonhap]](https://wimg.heraldcorp.com/news/cms/2026/08/05/rcv.YNA.20260804.PYH2026080406100001300_P1.jpg)
The Ministry of Employment and Labor's work briefing at Cheong Wa Dae on Tuesday began with applause — but ended with a lingering sense of dissatisfaction. None of the questions viewers had hoped the live broadcast would answer were actually addressed. Members of the public participation panel who had traveled from Daejeon and Jeongeup in North Jeolla Province appeared to have had to settle for a tour of the presidential compound. They left without any promise of resolution or answers to their concerns.
President Lee Jae Myung has been livestreaming government ministry briefings to show the public directly what civil servants — who, as the administration puts it, lie awake at night thinking of unfinished work — are doing on their behalf. The sessions also serve as a showcase for the government's competence. Labor Minister Kim Young-hoon led with a string of first-half achievements worthy of the applause they received: an 11.8 percent drop in fatal workplace accidents, a 10.7 percent reduction in unpaid wages, a 15.8 percent decrease in the number of workers affected by wage theft, and a 16.4 percent increase in paternity leave uptake.
What was missing, however, was any engagement with the questions the public actually wanted answered. The ministry gave reporters only a day's notice of a deputy minister's background briefing — not entirely surprising, given that the presidential briefing schedule itself is not shared in advance. But when asked about live issues such as the controversy over excess-profit sharing and the ministry's position on special legislation for "mega special zones," officials said nothing. No issue is more pressing for labor and management alike right now than the mega special zone bill.
It was not only journalists who were left frustrated. A young member of the public participation panel who had come up from Daejeon said she learned her salary would be 2 million won ($1,400) less than expected just one minute before signing her employment contract, and asked the ministry to require job postings to disclose wages. This is not the first time young people have raised the issue — the same request was made at a presidential labor policy forum in March. Yet nothing changed in the months that followed. A survey conducted Tuesday on private job-search websites found that only 7.8 percent of job postings listed a salary. Still, Minister Kim said the ministry was "reviewing" the matter.
Another panel member asked whether the 11.8 percent drop in fatal workplace accidents reflected policy or simply the construction sector's downturn — noting that fatalities in construction, the industry considered most dangerous, fell by 33 to 105, a 23.9 percent year-on-year decline. No one answered. In fact, the number of active construction sites in the first half of this year rose to about 1.03 million, up roughly 130,000, or 13.4 percent, from the same period last year — suggesting that stronger on-site safety management, not a slowdown in construction activity, drove the improvement. It was an explanation the ministry could have offered. It chose not to.
'Sejong Backbriefing' is a column by The Herald Business's Sejong-based correspondent covering informal background briefings on government policy announcements, the meaning between the lines of policy decisions, and behind-the-scenes stories from the corridors of power.
fact0514@heraldcorp.com
