Input 2020.12.23 12:52
Target 21 million employment insurance subscribers by 2025
Expansion of subscription sequence… Special High School → Delivery Article → Self-employed
Reorganization of employment insurance application standards… ‘Working hours’ →’Income’
The government is planning to promote the’All National Employment Insurance’ in which all employed are subscribed to employment insurance by 2025 by gradually expanding the application of employment insurance not only for wage workers, but also for specially employed (specially skilled workers), platform workers, self-employed workers, and temporary and daily workers Revealed on the 23rd.
Minister of Employment and Labor Lee Jae-gap held a briefing at the Seoul Government Complex on the same day and announced the entire National Employment Insurance Roadmap, including the above.
As of last year, the number of employment insurance subscribers was 13.67 million, half of the total employed (27.15 million). This is to be expanded to 17 million in 2022, 17 million in 2022, and 21 million in 2025.
On the 10th, the government already implemented the revised Employment Insurance Act, which also includes artists covered by employment insurance. The target of application is estimated to be 75,000 out of 178,000 domestic artists who have had experience in signing contracts related to artistic activities for the past one year.
From next July, special high school workers will be eligible for employment insurance.
In the case of special notices, the priority will be determined in consideration of the need for protection, focusing on occupations covered by industrial accident insurance. Accordingly, a plan to apply employment insurance first to 14 occupations, such as insurance planners, study paper teachers, courier drivers, deputy drivers, and truck owners, is under consideration. According to the Korea Labor Institute, the total size of special articles is currently about 1.66 million, and the 14 occupations covered by industrial accident insurance are estimated to be between 1.06 million and 1.33 million.
In addition, the employment insurance subscription is supported in consideration of differences in the type of contract with the employer and the method of reporting income by job type.
From January 2022, platform workers who work through digital platforms such as smartphone apps will also be eligible for employment insurance.
Currently, it is estimated that 1.79 million workers in the broad sense of the platform work through the platform, and 220,000 workers in the narrow sense of the work assignment are also used as platforms.
The government decided to lay the groundwork for understanding and managing the actual state of the platform on which labor provision or brokerage is performed. In addition, it is a policy to prioritize employment insurance to those who can easily identify the business owner because the platform company directly acts as a business owner or has an agency. In this case, platform business owners must report their insured eligibility and pay insurance premiums withholding.
The government has a policy to allow platform workers and other special notices that are not included in the priority application to sign up from July of the same year. To this end, it plans to determine the targets for application in the first half of the year after conducting a survey from early next year.
In addition, the government is promoting the expansion of employment insurance coverage for self-employed persons. Among the domestic economically active population, the number of self-employed persons, one of which is 2.31 million to 2.58 million, is estimated at 1.33 million persons who are self-employed with employees.
In the case of self-employed people, they are’voluntarily enrolled in employment insurance’, but the enrollment rate is low and it is difficult to judge’involuntary unemployment’, which is a requirement for receiving unemployment benefits, in the same way as workers. Accordingly, the government is planning to initiate a social dialogue for self-employed people to sign up for employment insurance in the first half of next year, and plan to apply employment insurance in the second half of 2022.
In addition, a plan is also being pursued to find workers who are omitted from the application targets, such as temporary and daily workers, and join them ex officio. Currently, the number of workers who do not have employment insurance is estimated at 3.74 million.
In addition, it will be reviewed whether employment insurance is applied to workers in agricultural, forestry and fisheries businesses with four or less employees and direct pension subscribers who are excluded from employment insurance under the current law. Among the subscribers to the direct pension, those in need of protection, such as those of university hospitals who are classified as private school faculty members, are subject to review.
It was decided to review the application of employment insurance for newly hired workers after the age of 65. The policy is to promote it in connection with discussions on extending the retirement age.
To this end, the government plans to change the current employment insurance system, which calculates premiums based on wages, based on income.
The standard for applying employment insurance will be reorganized from the current’working hours (60 hours or more per month)’ to’income’ and implemented in 2022-2023. Those with more than one job can join by adding up their income.
Also, in 2024-2025, the employment insurance management system centered on the workplace will be changed to the individual center. It is a policy to reflect changes in employment patterns over the life of subscribers by establishing an individual management system similar to that of health insurance.
The government will strengthen information linkage with the National Tax Service so as not to omit the income information of employment insurance subscribers.
In the case of special notices, the National Tax Service provides monthly electronic tax invoices for special notices to the Korea Labor Welfare Corporation and uses them as income estimation data, and platform operators will promote a plan for platform business owners to withhold insurance premiums for each transaction and report transaction details.
Minister Lee Jae-gap said at a briefing that day, “This roadmap is the government’s blueprint for not only solving the problems we are currently facing, but also building a strong safety net that can proactively cope with the upcoming crisis.”
Regarding the concern about the financial soundness of the employment insurance, he said, “We will evaluate the operation performance through a specialized agency after operating for a certain period of time for newly applied targets and conduct a financial estimate.”