The General Reservation of the Voluntary Unemployment Grant

It was disclosed that the government ignored to support the unemployed, busy spending funds to support the pork-barreling policies such as protection of motherhood.

On the 10th, the Ministry of Labor announced that they would reserve the plan to support the voluntary unemployed. The Ministry had announced in January,``we will legislate the system and activate the law from next year.``

The Ministry of Labor official No Min-Gi, the member of the inquiry commission said, ``we decided to reserve the plan because we ran short of funds owing to the policy of the protection of motherhood and the daily labor workers.``

The unemployed who voluntarily left their jobs to change post or starting new business were as many as 70 percent of the total unemployed; but they are not receiving any help.

Only 11 percent of the unemployed receive the benefit of unemployment compensation; and accordingly the Ministry of Labor is planning to pay compensation to those who are unemployed for more than 6 months. For this plan, the Ministry made 17 billion won budget; however, the plan will be inevitably reserved due to the policy of the protection of motherhood.

According to the Ministry, 23billion won for the protection of motherhood (a maternity leave for 30 days and a childcare leave) and 30billion won for the daily labor will be spent next year.

Unemployment compensation funds have marked black ink each year. For example, it marked 50billion black ink in this year. But if the two policies are activated next year and the current premium is kept, any new plan will not be possible.

A Ministry official said, `` unemployment compensation funds for the daily labor worker is a pork-barreling policy to please the labor circle, which has no precedent example in any developed country.`` He added, ``the voluntary unemployment compensation is adopted by many developed countries, verified its effectiveness. We had propelled the plan with enthusiasm.`` the official added.

``There has been a controversy over who would take the financial responsibility of the protection of motherhood among health insurance, general finance and employment insurance. But since we employment insurance are in a better financial situation than others, we took the protection of motherhood.``

The department of unemployment compensation has always straitened for money; however the hiring policy fund marks black ink every year,32 billion won in 2000 and 17 billion won in 1999. The two funds are separated, the unemployment compensation is raised by both employees and employers but the funds for hiring policy is raised only by employers. If the fund for the protection of motherhood is created from the fund for hiring policy, the financial situation will be better; however, according to the principle of the shared-burden for the protection of motherhood, the tripartite committee has decided like this. The chief of women worker policy department, the sub department of the Ministry of Labor, Shin Myung said, `` it is necessary to raise the protection of motherhood fund from the unemployment compensation. If we raise the fund from the hiring policy, raised by employers, there will be many problems in the case if the premium goes up.``

Kim Joon-Seok kjs359@donga.com