South Korea's government has announced a goal of creating 260-thousand jobs related to science and technology over the next five years.

The Ministry of Science and ICT says that includes 12-thousand jobs for researchers in various fields and 10-thousand jobs at labs.

Predicting at least 200-thousand qualified professionals will be needed in related areas by 2020, the ministry said it will develop a model early next year to more precisely predict the specific job demand per field.

To help meet the growing demand for researchers in artificial intelligence(AI) and software, it said it will create a graduate school specialized in intelligence information while raising the number of software-specialized universities from 20 to 30 by 2019.