With regard to ways to overcome the economic crisis, President Lee Myung-bak said on Jan. 15, "We need to use concrete methods to stabilize wage levels and pursue ''job sharing'' to increase real employment."

President Lee chaired the second session of the emergency economic council held at Cheong Wa Dae. "It''s important to resolve youth unemployment. But what is more urgent above anything else is to implement policies to help jobless heads of households," deputy presidential spokeswoman Kim Eun-hye quoted him as saying.

In relation to this, Kim quoted Labor Minister Lee Young-hee as reporting to the President, "The government will persuade employers and workers alike to make concessions to each other and share the pain to overcome the crisis in accordance with circumstances which individual enterprises are facing."

President Lee, meanwhile, instructed ministries to consult with each other to spend their budgets effectively and at an early date, with a view to creating more temporary jobs for workers and supplying them with small rental apartments.

While saying that the government is mapping out a number of policies, President Lee also urged local administrations and conglomerates to act swiftly and with a sense of social responsibility. He continued, "If we look around carefully, we can find ways to help the needy people in metropolitan areas, just like Food Bank does. There''s been nothing like this year when we''re most urgently in need of the virtue of sharing."

He also said, "I hope that each ministry will focus on increasing employment and helping workers when it implements policies to create jobs. It''s also necessary to improve labor-related systems in such a way as to contribute to increasing employment."

He went on to say, "I hope that each minister will implement policies with conviction and a sense of responsibility in spending his or her ministry''s budget early. Unless ministers take responsibility, it will be hard for public servants to make quick decisions."

He urged the ministers to fulfill their duties with a firm resolve to encourage their ministry''s implementation of policies with a sense of responsibility, while also taking good care of each ministry''s day-to-day work.

That day''s meeting lasted two hours and 15 minutes from 7:30 to 9:45 a.m. The chiefs of situation rooms from 14 government agencies also attended for the first time and watched the whole process.