Daegu Mayor Choo Kyung-ho presides over a senior staff meeting at Daegu City Hall's Sangyeok office on Tuesday. [Provided by Daegu City]
Daegu Mayor Choo Kyung-ho presides over a senior staff meeting at Daegu City Hall's Sangyeok office on Tuesday. [Provided by Daegu City]

Daegu Mayor Choo Kyung-ho has called on city officials to conduct a rigorous analysis of the structural causes behind the city's sluggish youth employment and to develop effective countermeasures.

Choo made the remarks Tuesday at a senior staff meeting at Daegu City Hall's Sangyeok office. "We need to precisely analyze why Daegu's youth employment rate is low and its unemployment rate is high, and translate that analysis into effective measures," he said.

To that end, he directed officials to work with experts from the Daegu Policy Research Institute and the Bank of Korea to analyze employment data and identify the specific causes of low youth job and employment rates through comparisons with other regions.

He also instructed staff to use the findings to review the effectiveness of existing job support policies and to consider reflecting any areas requiring additional support in next year's budget.

"Sympathizing with the difficulties young people face is not enough," Choo said. "We can only come up with the right solutions when we know exactly what the problems are."

In addition, he asked the city's youth policy adviser to identify and support a "youth policy leadership group" that would allow young people to directly propose and shape city policies.

Choo also identified public safety as the top priority for next year's main budget.

"Even when fiscal conditions are difficult, safety is an area we must not neglect," he said. "We also need to allocate effective budgets for stabilizing livelihoods and building future growth engines."

He directed officials to strengthen safety inspections at recreational areas, hiking trails, children's playgrounds, aging structures and high-traffic facilities ahead of the autumn festival season and an expected increase in outdoor visitors, and to respond swiftly to public safety reports.

After receiving a briefing on the Daegu Fire Safety Headquarters' fire-response training plans, Choo offered condolences for the late Fire Lieutenant Kim Jin-seok, who died in the line of duty at a factory fire in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province, and called for a thorough review of firefighter safety and disaster response systems.

Choo closed the meeting by urging senior officials to recognize employees' hard work, improve operational efficiency and ensure that staff who deliver results receive fair evaluations and rewards.


kbj7653@heraldcorp.com