`Falsely Posing as Unemployed` Continues to Increase

`Falsely posing as unemployed`, those who give a false account of employment in order to receive the financial aides from the government, are increasing.

The Ministry of Labor revealed yesterday that those who were exposed as `falsely posing as unemployed` totaled 3,651 until the end of October this year, which is an increase from the same period last year (3,252).

The fraudulent unemployment allowances have exceeded over 1 billion won, and the government have been exposed over 3,000 illegal recipients every year since 1998.

Accordingly, the fraudulent unemployment allowances reached about 7.6 billion won up to the end of October this year from 1996.

Most people who `falsely posed as unemployed` did not report their re-employment in order to receive the unemployment allowance, and many voluntarily unemployed peoples pretended to have lost their jobs due to the `lay-off` or `restructuring`.

The Ministry of Labor has compared the income tax payment data of the National Tax Service with the recipients of unemployment allowance one by one in order to preclude such pretenders. But many pointed out that it could hardly be a fundamental measure because there was a one-month time difference between the unemployment payment and the exposure.

Jin Lee leej@donga.com