South Korea will start accepting more applicants for compulsory military service to narrow down the gap between the number of young men signing up for enlistment and the number of places available for them.
The Ministry of National Defense and the ruling Saenuri Party agreed Tuesday to expand the quota for military enlistment by 10,000 in 2016 and 2017. They decided to budget some 60 billion won ($53 million) to accommodate the increase in the number of enlisted service members.
“We agreed to address the youths’ struggles to join the military,” said Rep. Kim Sung-chan of the ruling Saenuri Party after the meeting, which was also attended by Saenuri chairman Rep. Kim Moo-sung and Defense Minister Han Min-koo.
“We have come up with measures to accommodate those enlisting, including budget issues and administrative procedures,” Kim said.
 |
| The ruling Saenuri Party Chairman Rep. Kim Moo-sung (left) and National Defense Minister Han Min-koo. Yonhap |
Kim also noted that the government had decided to increase enlistment from 4,000 to 6,000 for those who choose to do alternative service instead of joining the army.
The Defense Ministry estimates that about 50,000 candidates have been on the waiting list for enlistment.
An increasing number of children of young men have been applying for the service amid a bleak youth job market.
Young people have traditionally considered the military service, which lasts at least 21 months, to be a career liability. But there has been a changing trend for them to think of it as an opportunity to find jobs or add to their resume, experts said.
“Back in the days, college students used to delay their enlistment for academic reasons or other reasons related to their career. Now they embrace the military service more proactively because more companies give credits to those who served in the military and have a bias against those who didn’t,” said Lee Byoung-hoon, a sociology professor at Chung-Ang University.
Yet the military’s demand for draftees has continued to decline in line with its ongoing reform plan, a move to streamline South Korea’s military by decreasing the active-duty troop level to 522,000 from the current 633,000 by 2020.
According to the statistics compiled by Rep. Chung Mi-hyung of the Saenuri Party, only 84,224 out of 630,427 applicants were enlisted in the Army, Navy and Air Force or Marine Corps. This means that only about 1 in 7.5 applicants were accepted, although the figure counts multiple applications by individuals.
“We consider the oversupply (of enlistment) to be an isolated case due to the surge of the birthrate (among baby boomer parents). We expect that the number of those waiting for enlistment will fall by 2017,” Defense Ministry spokesperson Kim Min-seok told reporters Tuesday.
By Yeo Jun-suk (jasonyeo@heraldcorp.com)
