Children at a daycare center in Buk-gu, Gwangju, wash their hair with iris water as part of a traditional Dano holiday custom. Starting next year, cross-selling insurance agents and after-school instructors at kindergartens and daycare centers will also be covered by employment insurance. [Yonhap]
Children at a daycare center in Buk-gu, Gwangju, wash their hair with iris water as part of a traditional Dano holiday custom. Starting next year, cross-selling insurance agents and after-school instructors at kindergartens and daycare centers will also be covered by employment insurance. [Yonhap]

Cross-selling insurance agents and after-school instructors at kindergartens and daycare centers will be brought under employment insurance coverage starting next year. The move aims to align employment and industrial accident insurance coverage, improve equity among workers in similar roles and expand the social safety net.

The Ministry of Employment and Labor announced Wednesday it will hold a 40-day legislative notice period through Aug. 31 for a proposed partial amendment to the enforcement decree of the Employment Insurance Act, which would expand employment insurance coverage to workers in four job categories, including insurance agents.

Under the proposed amendment, the insurance agent category would be expanded to include "cross-selling agents" — those who solicit both life and non-life insurance products — as well as mutual-aid solicitors at credit unions and saemaul credit cooperatives. The after-school instructor category would add specialized after-school instructors at kindergartens and special-activity program instructors at daycare centers. Delivery workers who also handle furniture installation under the Living Logistics Service Act, and affiliated card solicitors in the credit card membership recruiter category, would also be newly covered. The government expects about 17,000 workers to gain employment insurance benefits as a result.

The amendment is designed to close the coverage gap between employment insurance and industrial accident insurance.

Currently, after-school instructors at elementary schools are covered by both employment and industrial accident insurance, while their counterparts at kindergartens and daycare centers receive only industrial accident insurance — leaving workers doing essentially the same job with unequal access to social insurance benefits. The government expects the amendment to largely resolve this inequity.

To ease the premium burden, the government plans to subsidize 80 percent of employment insurance premiums through the Durunuri social insurance support program for employers at workplaces with fewer than 10 workers and for workers earning less than 2.7 million won ($1,820) per month.

"This expansion will significantly strengthen the employment safety net for workers in some job categories that had been left outside employment insurance coverage," Employment and Labor Minister Kim Young-hoon said. "Going forward, rather than adding one job category at a time, we will broaden employment insurance coverage to encompass all personal service income earners under the National Tax Act, transforming it into a social safety net for every working person."


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