Working extra hours to reduce extra work

What drew the most attention at Wednesday’s presidential policy briefing by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources was Minister Kim Jung-kwan’s introduction of a task force organized within the ministry to eliminate at least 30 percent of “pseudowork.” Inspired by a book by Dennis Normark and Anders Fogh Jensen, Kim said the ministry has been collecting feedback from employees since October to cut tasks that seem productive but create no real value. “I told staff not to host events just for show, but the number of events under our ministry is beyond imagination,” he said. “Since all these events are funded by taxpayers’ money, we should refrain from organizing new ones.” After drawing President Lee Jae Myung’s interest and prompting him to order other ministries to set up similar teams, Kim again emphasized his ministry’s efforts to reduce needless paperwork and overtime during a follow-up dinner with reporters later that day. However, critics say the project to cut extra work is actually generating more of it. “There are concerns that the government is crea