▲ Minister of Employment and Labor Kim Young-hoon reports during a ministry work briefing presided over by President Lee Jae-myung at the Reception Hall of the Blue House on the 4th. (Photo: Yonhap News)
The government is pushing to grant unemployment benefits (job-seeking benefits) once in a lifetime even to young people who voluntarily leave their jobs.
A new National Employment Support System tailored for young people attempting their first employment will be established, and the job-seeking promotion allowance will be raised from the current 600,000 won to 650,000 won per month.
It also announced plans to push for major policy tasks within the year, including legislation to extend the retirement age and the enactment of the Basic Act on Workers.
Minister of Employment and Labor Kim Young-hoon reported the Ministry of Employment and Labor's work promotion plan for the second half of this year, including these measures, during a presidential work briefing held at the Blue House today (the 4th).
To support career redesign for young people, the ministry announced that it will push for revisions to the Employment Insurance Act and reflection in next year's budget within the year so that job-seeking benefits can be applied when young people under the age of 35 voluntarily resign after working for a certain period or longer.
This means that if a working young person attempts to change jobs to find a position that better suits them, job-seeking benefits will be provided once in their lifetime even in the case of voluntary resignation.
Considered measures include 60% of the wage before changing jobs, up to a maximum of 1 million won per month.
However, as concerns over the deterioration of employment insurance finances are raised, the ministry explained that it plans to implement this differently from the current maximum benefit period of 270 days for unemployment benefits.
Along with this, the ministry stated that it will shift the focal point of employment policy toward "jobs desired by young people."
The ministry will introduce the "K-Youth Guarantee" (Youth First Employment Support System), which expands the existing National Employment Support System—that provides employment support and livelihood stability to vulnerable groups unable to receive employment insurance, such as low-income job seekers—to young people attempting their first employment.
The ministry explained that it will establish a new support category for young people attempting their first employment, separate from Type 1 for existing low-income earners and Type 2 for specific groups such as youth and middle-aged and older adults.
The job-seeking promotion allowance provided under the National Employment Support System will be raised from the current 600,000 won per month to 650,000 won per month starting next year.
Support for the "K-New Deal Academy," where large corporations lead youth vocational competency development training programs in their specialized fields and the government subsidizes the costs, will further expand support next year following this year's target of 10,000 people.
In addition, the ministry plans to establish a "Playground" service where the government responsibly connects K-New Deal Academy graduates to public-sector projects and job fairs until they actually secure employment.
The ministry announced that it will continue social discussions with the goal of legislating the extension of the retirement age, a long-cherished desire of both the government and labor circles, in the second half of the year.
The ministry plans to promote a "generation-cooperative" retirement age extension that considers intergenerational coexistence and sustainability by simultaneously reorganizing job, working hours, and wage systems following employment maintenance to alleviate corporate burdens, and preparing old-age income support measures for special-type and platform workers.
In public institutions, the ministry plans to consult on measures to improve the management of staffing and total labor costs and enhance the effectiveness of the youth employment quota system to expand new youth hiring.
To alleviate gaps in old-age income, the ministry will also embark on institutional improvements such as making retirement benefits outside-company reserves mandatory and revitalizing fund-type retirement pensions.
Considering that atypical workers—such as special-type, platform, and freelance workers who cannot be explained by existing labor-management relations—reach 8.69 million, the ministry stated that it aims for a package legislation of the Basic Act on Workers and the presumption of worker status by next December.
For the plan to gradually expand the application of the Labor Standards Act to workplaces with fewer than 5 employees, the ministry decided to wrap up fact-finding analysis by October and enter into full-scale social dialogue starting in September.
In addition, the ministry decided to draw up plans within the year to establish the "K-Labor Welfare Center," which can deliver welfare systems such as retirement deduction support, financial support, and workplace improvement to atypical workers.
However, the ministry explained that the labor welfare center is a system for delivering welfare schemes rather than labor-management negotiations, and that it will sufficiently communicate with the labor sector to resolve concerns.
Regarding ongoing controversies surrounding the scope of labor disputes—such as large corporation unions putting forward "N% of operating profit as performance-based bonuses" and the government's push for mega special zones as agendas for labor-management negotiations—the ministry plans to announce guidelines specifying the subjects and scope of labor-management negotiations within this month.
The design is to minimize confusion in the field through this.
To respond to controversies over excess profit-sharing by large corporations such as semiconductors and changes in the labor market due to the spread of AI, the ministry plans to formulate a "New Social Contract in the AI Age."
To this end, it plans to create a question-centered green paper involving expert groups and form a labor-management-government social dialogue body.
The ministry also decided to formulate a roadmap containing plans to legislate the principle of equal pay for work of equal value and promote supra-corporate bargaining within this year.
The ministry stated that 183 companies have been shortlisted as having repeatedly experienced identical types of disasters such as falls, getting caught, and fires or explosions over the past 10 years, and announced that it will demand safety measures from these companies and manage them closely starting this month.
Companies that have experienced repeated disasters over the past 3 years will be managed through a dedicated inspector management system.
If a serious disaster occurs once again at these companies, the ministry plans to launch high-intensity inspections and supervisions equivalent to special supervisions.
Revisions to related laws to guarantee workers' right to suspend work in the event of danger and right to participate in pre-work risk assessments will also be pursued within the year.
The "Wage Separation Payment System," which was previously applied only to public construction businesses, is planned to complete preparations including revisions to subordinate statutes this year so that it can be expanded and applied to private construction and shipbuilding sectors starting next January.
The Wage Separation Payment System is a scheme that requires principals to separate and pay wage costs that will go to subcontractors as a separate item when paying contract prices to subcontractors every month.
The total amount of unpaid wages in the first half of this year reached 924.8 billion won, down 10.7% from the first half of last year (1.0358 trillion won).
The ministry stated that it investigated 4,247 workplaces with repeated reports of wage arrears from the end of last year until the 6th of last month, and that it will continue full-scale investigations to block habitual wage arrears.
In addition, the ministry added that employment instability and discriminatory treatment of fixed-term workers continue, and that it will formulate plans to rationalize the fixed-term worker system containing improvements to split contracts, strengthening the effectiveness of the discrimination correction system, and adjusting usage periods.
Minister Kim Young-hoon said, "In the second half of the year, we will place top priority on establishing an inclusive social safety net to expand the foundation where all working people, including labor providers who were in blind spots of protection, can be protected," adding, "The Ministry of Employment and Labor will take the lead for growth for people, labor that protects dignity, and a future where no one is excluded."
(Photo: Yonhap News)
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