Korea restarts public agency relocation against 20 straight years of young inflows to Seoul

The six negative years, 2011 through 2016, sit inside the first round's own window. Net migration into the capital region was positive in nine of the fifteen years the first relocation program ran, negative in six, and positive again every year from 2017 ^[4][16]. Among people aged 19 to 34 there was no negative year at all, during the program or since ^[5][18]. More than 60% of arrivals of all ages gave jobs and family as their reason for moving ^[6].

The employment quality figures run the same direction. The Korea Employment Information Service series has the share of workers in the top 20% of wages by occupation rising in the capital region and falling outside it, with a wider gap than a decade ago ^[8]. Media reports cited by Seoul Economic Daily put 46.8% of the entire 2013-2023 national employment increase in the capital region ^[9]. The rest of the country split 53.2% ^[17].

Selling a headquarters did not free capacity in the capital region either. When an agency sold its old building in the Seoul area, another facility, institution or housing development moved into that building or site ^[7].

Policy finance is the paper's strongest example. Korea Trade Insurance Corporation does not lend; it converts money from domestic and overseas private financial institutions into large-scale, long-term policy finance through insurance and guarantees ^[14]. Contracting, financing negotiation and review on defense, nuclear power and plant construction work require continuous working ties with domestic and foreign banks, foreign embassies, overseas project owners, and legal and accounting advisers ^[15]. Finance, the paper argues, is common infrastructure that supports every region ^[13].

The counter-argument uses the same logic. A placement standard with no number in it can be satisfied by any Seoul agency describing its own network, and the standard the paper proposes is qualitative: how an agency's location contributes to regional and national growth ^[11]. I would still take that test over the count, because the count has been run once already and the good-jobs gap widened while it ran ^[8]. The plan as unveiled does not give a number of agencies, a timetable or a cost ^[19]. If the share of top-quintile wage jobs outside the capital region turns up in the years after the second round, and the 19-to-34 series records a net outflow year, the count was enough and this reading is wrong ^[8][5].