SEJONG -- Korea's state-run companies are planning to hire over 28,000 employees this year, up 5,000 from their earlier planned figure, as part of efforts to address the country's chronic youth unemployment, the finance ministry said Friday.

Early this week, the government said it would extend financial and tax incentives to young jobseekers and plan to put together 4 trillion won ($3.75 billion) in extra budget to finance a variety of projects to jack up the employment of young people.

President Moon Jae-in has called for all-out efforts to create new quality jobs for young people and called the country's high youth jobless rate a national disaster.

Creating quality jobs, especially for the young, was one of Moon's key election pledges. The president has promised to add 810,000 new jobs in the public sector during his single five-year term, which ends in May 2022.

Moon has had several display panels installed in his office to provide daily data on the country's jobless rate and other job-related developments.

As of the end of December, the unemployment rate for people between 15 and 29 years of age came to 9.2 percent, nearly three times higher than the national jobless rate of 3.3 percent.(Yonhap)