A person fills out a form to apply for unemployment benefit counseling at an employment welfare center in Seoul. [Yonhap]
A person fills out a form to apply for unemployment benefit counseling at an employment welfare center in Seoul. [Yonhap]

Workers holding short-hour jobs at multiple workplaces — such as convenience stores or cafes — will soon be able to combine their monthly earnings to qualify for employment insurance. The government is shifting the enrollment criterion from working hours to income, significantly strengthening protections for part-time and low-wage workers who have long fallen outside the system.

The Ministry of Employment and Labor said Friday that Minister Kim Young-hoon visited the Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service to review progress on the income-based employment insurance initiative, and that the ministry would open a 40-day legislative notice period for proposed amendments to the Employment Insurance Act and the Act on the Collection of Insurance Premiums for Employment and Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance.

The core of the overhaul is a shift away from the current working-hours framework toward an income-based system that extends coverage to platform workers and ultra-short-hour workers.

The eligibility threshold will change from the current requirement of working at least 60 hours a month — or 15 hours a week — to earning at least 800,000 won ($532) a month. The ministry said it set the figure by taking into account that newly enrolled workers putting in 15 hours a week earn an average of about 790,000 won a month, as well as the existing 800,000-won enrollment threshold applied to service providers. Future adjustments to the threshold will factor in inflation, wage growth and any expansion of coverage.

A new provision will also allow workers who earn less than 800,000 won at any single workplace to combine their earnings from multiple employers and enroll if the combined total reaches the threshold.

"Switching to an income-based criterion is projected to bring an additional 350,000 people into employment insurance based on last year's figures," a ministry official said. "With the income-aggregation system added on top of that, we will be able to provide stronger protection for low-wage workers."

The premium assessment process will also be overhauled. The annual lump-sum wage report that employers currently submit once a year will be abolished and replaced with a monthly wage reporting system filed with the Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service. Employers will also be able to substitute income data already reported to the National Tax Service for the monthly wage filing, reducing their administrative burden. The reporting deadline will be the end of the month following the month in which wages were paid.

The government will also build a new system linking about 25.1 million National Tax Service income records with data on approximately 15.5 million employment insurance enrollees to assess and settle premiums on an income basis. To ease the burden on employers, the ministry plans to upgrade the integrated employment and industrial accident insurance online service and its mobile app, and to link the system with tax accountants' filing software.

In addition, the criteria for designating nonprofit organizations in the social welfare sector as priority-support businesses will be revised. Under the current rules, only organizations with a regular workforce of 300 or fewer employees qualify; the new standard will allow organizations to qualify if they have either 300 or fewer regular employees or annual business revenue of 60 billion won or less, expanding the pool of eligible recipients.

"Income-based employment insurance is the first step toward universal employment insurance, in which the state takes responsibility for every working person," Kim said. "We will build a new employment safety net based on income rather than working hours, close the coverage gaps for low-income and short-hour workers, and continue to expand eligibility — starting with personal service income earners."

However, concerns have been raised that extending coverage to ultra-short-hour workers could increase the insurance premium burden on small businesses. Because enrollment eligibility for workers holding multiple jobs will be determined by combining their income across workplaces, there is a risk of operational confusion during the premium assessment, settlement and monthly wage reporting processes. Critics have also noted that some employers may resort to workarounds — adjusting hours or wages to keep workers just below the 800,000-won monthly threshold.


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