The Ministry of Employment and Labor (MOEL) said on the 20th that it will introduce a mileage system to unemployment benefits and the National Employment Support Program, changing to a method that automatically pays benefits once points are accumulated.
That day, the ministry announced a "national employment service innovation plan" centered on this approach at the Employment Policy Deliberation Council. Currently, recipients must report to an employment center that they attended a job-seeking lecture every one to four weeks or received vocational training to receive benefits. The National Employment Support Program also requires participation in employment support services every month to receive benefits.
In this regard, the ministry decided to award mileage differentially according to the difficulty of job-seeking activities. For example, on-the-job training would be set at 100 mileage points, and participation in special lectures for employees at 90 mileage points. The ministry will then introduce a system that pays benefits once a certain mileage threshold is exceeded. A ministry official said, "Right now, applying for a job online or receiving long-term vocational training are both counted the same as one activity," adding, "Going forward, we will give higher scores to vocational training than to one-off job applications." The weighting of mileage by job-seeking activity will be decided through further discussions.
The ministry also announced it will overhaul employment welfare centers that consolidation job seekers with corporations. This follows criticism that 102 employment welfare centers nationwide provide uniform services to job seekers. In response, the ministry will assign repetitive administrative tasks to artificial intelligence (AI) and shift to counseling-centered services. It will introduce a "my AI employment center" service to recommend suitable jobs based on the information entered by job seekers.
The ministry plans to directly identify corporations struggling to hire by visiting worksites in industrial complexes. It will then connect corporations with poor job conditions to subsidy programs to improve wages and working hours, and recommend job seekers who have completed relevant training to corporations lacking suitable talent.
Minister Kim Young-hoon of the ministry said, "From graduation to retirement, we will build employment centers as partners who chart every citizen's job journey together."