Word: kim
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...many young people, the new frontier has been liberating. As a university student, photojournalist Kim Woo Kyoung fantasized about becoming a taxi driver just to have a chance to drive around and meet ordinary people, but he felt social pressure to stick to a narrow range of "respectable" career choices. Recently Kim left a large television network to set up his own media company. Says Kim: "IMF has broken down the university-credential wall...
...rough that the bank could count just 30% of the assessed home value as collateral, and could only lend accordingly. The system was also open to bribery--slipping an envelope full of cash to a bank official was a good way to boost your property value, according to Kim Jun Tae, head of the now privatized bank. "The culture was very bureaucratic," says Kim. "I told people we have to be doing business, we have to sell things...
...Since Kim became chief executive last year, that's exactly what bank employees have been doing. Property assessments were computerized with help from U.S. consulting firm McKinsey & Co., and loan officers must spend their time drumming up new business. Or else: 30% of their paycheck is tied to performance. Improved efficiency means homeowners today can get loans of up to 80% of the assessed value of their homes. The bank's president and CEO wants his employees to think like entrepreneurs and sends frequent e-mail to hammer home the message. He even brings in motivational speakers from other walks...
...also promises to be a painful one in a country where everybody from workers to executives took job security for granted. President Kim's policies are pushing up unemployment, at least for the short term. The government prediction of 9% unemployment this year is stunning in a country used to levels closer to 2%. Kim Jung Mi, 30, was fired without notice last June from her sales job at a small Seoul bookstore. In a country where women occupy few positions in the top levels of business, they are often the first to get the ax when restructuring starts...
...Kim stopped eating and slipped into a depression. A friend had to care for her son. Eventually friends found her a psychiatrist willing to provide free therapy and medication. Since January she has been working as a clerk in a government-sponsored public works program, which pays for food and the tiny, unheated basement apartment she moved into after being laid off. But Kim doesn't know what she and her son will do when the money from her subsidized program runs...