Have you seen the TV program ‘Creative Korea’? It was the first nationwide ‘job creation’ audition, which was greatly loved by Korean audiences. The participants fiercely competed with each other to capture the judges’ minds with their fresh ideas and strong characters. In the end, the audience members paid attention to job creation. With the support of the governmental policy ‘Development of Creative Economy’, job creation emerged as a new important concept. Job creation has recently received attention as a new solution of the increasing unemployment today. However, it is still unfamiliar to us. Let’s find out what job creation is. -Ed.
 
■ What is job creation?
  Job creation didn’t get attention at first. Therefore, discussions have been conducted actively about job creation in academic and labor sectors recently. The definition of job creation is making a job that refers to one’s own competence, skills and ideas of the job. More specifically, it creates sustainable new jobs and generates continuing profits. It enters the labor market by using creative ideas and activities. The freshness of making a job attracts young people to prepare for job creation. Job creation is similar to a business start-up. People run business start-ups to make a job, which is a job creation itself, they want. Job creation is a higher level concept than the business start-ups because it is one of the means of job creation. Furthermore, making one’s own job simply doesn’t mean job creation because it has its own standards and fields.

  In the fields of job creation, there are various kinds of job creation based in social enterprise, eco-friendly environment, smart phones and social networks, leisure and hobby, and financial support for university students. Furthermore, the fields of job creation are diverse and they are expected to gradually increase.
 
■ What makes job creation receive such an enthusiastic response?
  According to Nam Min-woo, the chief of Presidential Committee on Young Generation, “The definition of job creation is a valuable idea that anyone will want to imitate.” In the same way, job creation has an ability to surpass the limits of existing jobs. Also, it has significantly high job-satisfaction because they are willing to plan and develop their own business which is appropriate for themselves. Furthermore, job creation can avoid the fierce competition in the existing markets because it creates new markets. In addition, it runs on one’s creative ideas, so it doesn’t relate to one’s career. Therefore, job creation attracts people because of the pride of making their own job and providing a job to other people. However, if you prepare for job creation with a rash decision, the result might be disastrous. Although the survival rate of startups, researched by Statistics Korea, is 72.6% for the first year, the survival rate of startups is only 46.4%, less than a half, for the first 3 years. In this way, it is hard to have a job which produces sustainable revenue. For the successful job creation, it is important to understand the developing aspects of the job market and how they will change.

■ Various fields of job creation
  Then, let’s see the examples of job creation.


  The first example is the eco-wedding that leads the wedding industry for the eco-friendly. The eco-wedding is the combination of the eco-friendly industry with the wedding industry. They make the wedding dresses with cornstarch, and the wedding invitation cards are printed using soybean oil. Lee Kyeong-jae(the Chief of Sewing for the Soil, Inc.) said, “I was challenged by job creation, thinking that the attempt at job creation is a process of learning that will remain my own valuable asset. Also, I will endeavor to make the eco-wedding as a culture.” Sewing for the Soil received a certification from the government in the name of social enterprise. Therefore, they receive personnel and consultation expenses. It’s not a big market yet, but the outlook of this field is bright because the eco-friendly apparel businesses in developed countries have already grown as one of the industry groups.

  The second example is the magazine for the blind, ‘Living Wizard’. Cho Do-hyeon(the Team Leader of Living Wizard) said, “I wanted to start this job because I wanted to give hope to blind people.” The existing magazine for the blind was just a copy of other articles. It consisted of just copied contents with the changed words to braille or sound. However, Living Wizard, a quarterly magazine, is the first magazine for the blind which provides many contents for the blind and reflects their opinions and tastes. Living Wizard introduces the examples of successful blind people for the purpose of encouraging other blind people. In addition, Living Wizard endeavors to give help to the blind by providing information about the products and smart phone applications that can give substantive help to the blind. Also, he said, “We can expect to create economical profits when support is activated such as creating a governmental publishing department for the blind.”


 
  The third example is the venture company, ‛I-um’, that provides online-dating services. Park Hee-eun(the Chief of I-um) said, “I started this business because I saw online-dating systems had grown as one of the industry categories in foreign countries. Then, I realized the necessity to change the Koreans’ negative thinking about online meetings. Furthermore, I think the attraction of job creation is living a dynamic life and learning lots of things faster than anybody else.” Now, launching the ‘I-um’ application, people can use dating services more easily. Due to these efforts, ‘I-um’ has grown into the number one social dating company in Korea, and now they have 140,000 members and earn ₩150 million revenue a month.
 

 

By Park Ji-su
js34@cbnu.ac.kr