W220 Bil. of employment insurance premiums unpaid

The amount in arrears of employment insurance premiums, which are used as the major financial source of projects for employment stability and jobless relief, has reached about 220 billion won.

Of the total 658,000 workplaces subject to the collection of employment insurance premiums, about 358,000, accounting for 54.4 percent, failed to pay a total of 226.1 billion won of premiums as of the end of August.

This was disclosed in a document the Ministry of Labor presented to Rep. Oh Se-Hoon of the Grand National Party, who belongs to the Environment-Labor Committee of the National Assembly, for the parliamentary inspection Monday.

By region, Seoul topped the list at 82.3 billion won, followed by Kyonggi-do and Inchon (56.4 billion won), Pusan (31.1 billion won), Taegu (20.5 billion won), Kwangju (18.8 billion won) and Taejon (16.9 billion won).

Of the total, 5.44 billion won was disposed as deficits as it was deemed impossible to be collected, according to the ministry data.