President Park Geun-hye on Wednesday remained unfazed by the umbrella labor unions’ withdrawal from the tripartite deal on labor reforms, calling for the relevant parties to compromise and indicating the government would continue to spearhead the measures regardless.

“I expect the labor and management to make a decision so that we can achieve labor reforms within this year,” Park said before receiving annual business reports from the Ministry of Employment and Labor and three other departments.

“Both sides have to make concessions and share pains, as now is the time to unite for the sake of creating jobs for young people.”

She also pointed out that the nation’s unemployment rate stood at 9.2 percent last year, the highest rate since 2000, and that the estimated number of unemployed youths has exceeded the 1 million mark.

The president’s comments were directed toward the Minjoo Party of Korea and the Federation of Korean Trade Unions, both of which disapprove of the government’s labor reform bills, citing deepening labor instability.

The FKTU, one of the nation’s two largest umbrella organizations, announced a day earlier that it would withdraw from the Sept. 15 trilateral agreement, holding the government and the ruling party responsible for ending the hard-achieved truce.

The agreement was signed last year by the labor, management and government representatives to seek long-term measures to improve the labor market.

The deal, placing top priority on youth employment, included solutions such as the “peak wage” system which gradually decreases the salaries of employees past retirement age. More controversial issues, such as extending the employment period of temporary workers or expanding dispatched labor, were held off for further discussion.

Based on the deal, which was the first of its kind in 17 years, the government and the ruling Saenuri Party motioned five relevant revision bills -- the labor standards act, the industrial accident compensation insurance act, the employment insurance act, the dispatched work act and the short-term worker protection act.

The presidential office withheld the most highly disputed short-term employment bill upon vehement opposition. But even the remaining four bills showed little promise of passing parliament due to the main opposition party’s persistent objection.

The union’s backlash was mostly against the government’s draft administrative guidelines to allow companies to discharge underperforming employees and modify its employment regulations without the workers’ consent.

Union officials had claimed that it was against good faith and violation of the trilateral deal for the government to force ahead with regulations, especially as the related laws have not yet been legislated. The government, on the other hand, blamed the union for repeatedly refusing open discussions and claimed that the leadership was held down by hard-liners.

Park, while not directly referring to the FKTU’s boycott, said the government would nevertheless push ahead with its labor reform plans.

As part of such efforts, Park on Monday participated in a petition campaign to collect 10 million signatures from people to demand the National Assembly to pass the pending labor and economy-related bills.

Reforming the labor market is part of Park’s “top four reforms” plan, which involves reforming the labor, education, public and financial sectors.

By Bae Hyun-jung (tellme@heraldcorp.com)