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South Korea spent some 76 percent of its state budget earmarked for 2018 in the first eight months as it moves to maintain its recovery pace and create more jobs, the finance ministry said Monday.
Some 212.8 trillion won ($191 billion) was spent through August, 12.6 trillion won, or 4.5 percentage points, more than the expected outlay of 200.3 trillion won, according to the Ministry of Strategy and Finance.
It earlier said efforts were under way to front-load its budget spending to minimize any fallout from the move to raise the minimum wage and to boost job creation.
The government hiked the minimum wage by 16.4 percent to 7,530 won as of Jan. 1 this year, the biggest jump in about two decades. The government has earmarked 3 trillion won to reduce the burden on smaller businesses that hire mostly part-time workers.
The ministry said some 26.6 trillion won was spent for social infrastructure projects in the January-August period, 1.7 percentage points higher than originally planned.
Some 3.09 trillion won, or 81.6 percent, of the 3.78 trillion-won extra budget was also implemented. The supplementary budget, formed in June, was aimed at boosting job creation.
But despite concerted efforts to bolster employment, recent jobs data has been disappointing -- job creation in July was the lowest recorded since January 2010.
The finance ministry said it will strive to implement financial reinforcement measures worth 7 trillion won before the end of the year.
In July, the government unveiled 3.8 trillion won in support measures for the underprivileged. Seoul also rolled out an additional 3.3 trillion won worth of policy steps aimed at boosting job creations. (Yonhap)
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