SEJONG -- South Korea saw the number of recipients of unemployment benefits reach an all-time high of 1.78 million in 2020 in the wake of the novel coronavirus, data from a state-run agency showed.

According to the Korea Employment Information Service, this marked an increase by 16.8 percent, 257,510 people, from 1.52 million a year earlier.

By region, Greater Seoul -- including Gyeonggi Province and Incheon -- ranked top five, alongside Sejong and Jeju Province, among the nation’s 17 major cities and provinces in terms of growth in the tally for recipients of the payouts for those who lost jobs.

Jeju Province topped the list as the nation's largest island posted a 44 percent surge from 15,136 in 2019 to 21,798 in 2020.

Self-employed businesspeople make up a high proportion of the province’s residents. Particularly over the past decade, many small retailers including coffee shop owners, have rushed from the mainland to the nation’s largest island.

Sejong, where the nation’s largest government complex is located, ranked second with a 21.1 percent increase in the recipient tally.
 

Like Jeju Island, the proportion of the self-employed, such as retailers and owners of private educational institutes, is relatively high in the administrative city of Sejong.

Incheon was third on the list at 19.5 percent, followed by Seoul with 19 percent and Gyeonggi Province with 18.6 percent.

It is estimated that the COVID-19 situation has dealt a severe blow to many salaried workers in the Seoul metropolitan area, where a dominant portion of businesses and retailers are located in Korea.

These three areas -- Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon -- saw the number of benefit recipients increase by 147,847 collectively. This made up 57.4 percent of the nationwide increase of 257,510 on-year.

Among the next on the list were South Gyeongsang Province at a 17.6 percent increase, South Chungcheong Province at 16.8 percent, Gangwon Province at 16.7 percent, Daegu at 14.2 percent and Gwangju at 13.8 percent.

Growth was relatively low in Ulsan with 9.4 percent (the lowest among the 17 regions), North Jeolla Province with 12.2 percent and Busan with 12.6 percent.

The KEIS data showed that the combined unemployment benefits paid for the jobless came to a record high of 12.18 trillion won ($10.65 billion) in 2020. This posted a 45.3 percent increase from 8.38 trillion won in 2019.

Apart from the 2020 figure, which bears heavy influence from the pandemic, the 2019 figure indicates a noteworthy jump from past years -- 6.68 trillion won in 2018, 5.24 trillion won in 2017, 4.89 trillion won in 2016 and 4.54 trillion won in 2015.

Concerning the rapid rise in benefit payouts since the mid-2010s, some government officials have argued that the climb of the balance was attributable to hikes in the low ceiling of benefit payment in proportion to the rise in the nation’s minimum wage.

On the contrary, many online commenters and analysts say the situation involving the record-breaking unemployment benefits could suggest a dire situation in the hiring market during the Moon Jae-in administration.

A labor researcher in Seoul cited the “extended-based” jobless rate, also called the de facto jobless rate, which includes the underemployed as well as the unemployed.

According to the Supplementary Index III for Employment, held by Statistics Korea, the de facto jobless rate has remained above 10 percent since the Moon government took office in May 2017.

After reaching 13 percent in January 2019, the figure exceeded the 15 percent mark for the first time in history to post 16.8 percent in January 2021. This means 4.97 million people of the economically active population of 29.61 million were de facto jobless as of early this year.

By Kim Yon-se (kys@heraldcorp.com)