문 대통령 "고용불안 속 시원히 해결안돼 송구,… 부동산 문제, 반드시 잡겠다"

Looking at issues on a more local level, much closer to peoples' actual livelihoods,… the president also fielded questions on economy-related issues, including South Korea's overheated real estate market and the shorter working hour systems introduced under his administration.
Our Kim Jae-hee reports.
A slew of economy-related questions were on Korean people's minds during Tuesday evening's televised townhall meeting with President Moon Jae-in.
On the issue of soaring housing prices in South Korea, the president insisted his administration has the ability to cope with the situation.
He pledged that they won't aim for a short-lived temporary fix, stressing that he wouldn't demand the construction of even more homes in a bid to lower prices.
"I'd like to assure you all that my administration is confident when it comes to dealing with the real estate market. We will bring prices under control by mobilizing stronger measures if the current ones don't bear fruit."
The Moon administration has long tried to tackle rising housing prices, taking a multi-pronged approach to it, but so far they haven't been able to do to much to ease the problem.
Addressing his pledge to create more jobs, the president expressed remorse that he was not able to meet the public's expectations, especially when it came creating enough quality jobs in South Korea.
"Creating as many quality jobs as possible and transforming the status of temporary workers into permanent workers is still our main priority. I also believe that ensuring day laborers have job security is a critical duty of mine."
While the president expressed content that the government-led shorter working hours system has improved workers' work-life balance, he said more needs to be done to ensure smaller firms can also smoothly implement the system without disrupting their business too much.
On his administration's hefty minimum wage hikes over the past couple of years, President Moon said the country is on the right track and he urged rival political parties to continue fine tuning the system to ensure it benefits workers, smalls businesses and society as a whole.
Kim Jae-hee, Arirang News.