The government will take full-scale measures to apply employment insurance to specially employed workers, freelancers, and self-employed persons. In 2025, the plan is to allow all employed people with income to subscribe to employment insurance.
Existing Employment Insurance System Limitations
Only half of the employed have employment insurance
Minister of Employment and Labor Lee Jae-gap held a press conference at the government building in Seoul on the morning of the 23rd, and announced the former National Employment Insurance Roadmap, which will gradually expand the scope of employment insurance coverage.
The current employment insurance system is designed on the premise of regular wage workers. When employers hire workers, they report their employment to the government and pay social insurance premiums including employment insurance premiums when paying their salaries. Although the system has been improved so that self-employed persons can join voluntarily or temporary workers, it is insufficient to cover the rapidly increasing number of atypical workers. There is a wide range of blind spots that cannot be joined, such as part-time non-regular workers and special employment workers. As of August last year, only 135.3 million (49.4%) were enrolled in employment insurance out of the 27.3 million total employed.
Following the measures to allow artists to subscribe to employment insurance this month, the government expanded the targets in the order of’special employment workers who can subscribe to industrial accident insurance now-platform workers centered on delivery workers-other specially employed workers, platform workers-self-employed people. I decided to do it. It seems that people who work in a similar manner to wage workers were found and included in the application.
Among the specially employed jobs, the types of jobs (1st stage) that can be subscribed to industrial accident insurance pursuant to the special provisions of the Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Act (Industrial Accident Insurance Act) are included in the employment insurance from July next year. 14 occupations including insurance planners and learning branch teachers (software industry freelance added in July next year).
From January 2022, occupations (step 2) that are easy to identify as a business owner among platform workers will be applied. The targets are expected to include the type of working as a platform as an agency, and the type in which the platform even acts as an agency. It is expected to be mainly delivery workers.
In order to enroll specially employed workers and platform workers in employment insurance, the core task is how to determine their income and collect and manage premiums. The government decided to check income information by using simple payment statements and (electronic) tax invoices, and establishing an integrated computer system that can identify data from the National Tax Service. Platform workers will also promote a plan to withhold and pay insurance premiums for each transaction.
The application of employment insurance to platform workers and specially hired workers that are not covered by the first and second stages was set to be in July 2022. The government’s goal is to easily identify employers, have a relatively high management possibility through an employee registration system, etc., and to select occupations that have a weak labor market position and select targets for application. To this end, it goes through a survey and a process of collecting opinions. The method of imposing insurance premiums on them is also left as a task for the future. It has only goals and virtually no action plans. The plan to include self-employed people from 2025 is also uncertain. Through social dialogue, it was decided to decide on all matters such as the target, method, application period, and stepwise expansion plan. Discussions on the introduction of a social safety net in various ways, such as substituting unemployment aid without applying employment insurance, or subscribing to unemployment benefits but paying unemployment benefits at a flat rate, are expected to continue.
Low platform workers,
Whether self-employed or not’opaque’
The government expects that, if such measures are realized in the entire national employment insurance policy, by 2025, about 21 million people, excluding those who are enrolled in direct pensions and unpaid family workers, such as soldiers, public servants, and teachers, will subscribe to employment insurance. To this end, the direction of redesigning the system based on income from calculating insurance premiums based on wages is also promoted. Regardless of the type of employment, the plan is to eliminate blind spots by enrolling in employment insurance for jobs with a certain income or more. From 2022 to 2023, the conditions for applying employment insurance, which are based on working hours, will be changed based on income. People who do multiple jobs charge an insurance premium on their combined income. From 2024 to 2025, it will shift from the workplace center to the individual management system. It means that it operates like a health insurance and national pension system. Minister Lee said, “According to the reorganization of the industrial structure, it is necessary to introduce a social insurance system that is managed centering on those who work beyond fixed workplaces.” “We will expand the application in stages, taking into account the urgency and realistic management capabilities of the company.”
Labor and management took quite different positions. In a statement, the KCTU said, “We welcome the big direction of expanding the application of employment insurance to all employed people,” and “We need to quickly implement measures so that it can be expanded to all specially employed and platform workers within at least one year.” I ordered. The Korea Federation of Economy & Finance said, “It is necessary to comprehensively review the characteristics of subscription targets, the necessity of subscription, the intentions of the parties, the conditions of employers who must share insurance premiums, and the impact on the labor market, and promote them in stages and elasticity.