Ministry of the Interior and Safety's 3rd Supplementary Budget of 1.67 Trillion Won... Providing 300,000 Jobs for Vulnerable Groups

Promotion of Korean New Deal Projects Including 1.2 Trillion Won Investment in Hope Work Support Project

[Asia Economy Reporter Jo In-kyung] The Ministry of the Interior and Safety announced on the 3rd that it has secured 1.6748 trillion won through the 3rd supplementary budget to overcome the COVID-19 crisis and will invest it in projects such as providing jobs for vulnerable groups. Most of the funds will be focused on revitalizing the local economy and the Korean New Deal projects.

Among the supplementary budget, 1.2061 trillion won will be first allocated to the COVID-19 Overcome Hope Jobs (Hope Work) project. It will provide public jobs to 300,000 vulnerable people who need livelihood support due to the economic downturn caused by COVID-19, enabling rapid and stable livelihood support.

Priority candidates include low-income groups, unemployed persons, temporarily closed or shut-down business owners, special employment workers (teukgo), and freelancers. Jobs will be supported in 10 categories such as life quarantine, emergency support for public tasks, and support for economic activities in rural and fishing villages.

1.161 billion won has also been allocated to the Public Data Youth Internship. To promote the opening and utilization of public data, 8,950 jobs in the information and communication technology (ICT) fields such as data analysis and quality management will be provided to young people.

An additional 317.7 billion won has been added to the budget supporting the issuance costs of local love gift certificates to revitalize the local economy. As the issuance scale of local love gift certificates increases from 60 trillion won to 90 trillion won, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety will support 240 billion won (8% of the issuance amount) of issuance costs for the additional issuance of 30 trillion won to reduce the financial burden on local governments. In addition, the issuance cost support rate for existing issuances will be raised from 4% to 8%, providing an additional 77.7 billion won in support.

To respond to the rapidly increasing demand for non-face-to-face services, 2.5 billion won will be invested by 2025 to transfer and integrate 180,000 information resources of central and local governments and public institutions into private and public cloud centers.

Additionally, 28.75 billion won will be invested to install digital observation and measurement systems in 170 collapse-risk areas as part of the disaster risk area disaster response early warning system construction. Also, 3.75 billion won will be invested to build an integrated disaster management resource system to quickly supply urgently needed resources at disaster sites.

Meanwhile, the National Fire Agency confirmed a total budget of 203.3 billion won for this year, an increase of 3.3 billion won through this 3rd supplementary budget.

The budget for installing emergency fire extinguishing devices in six coastal forest-adjacent cities and counties on the East Coast increased by 3.5 billion won, and 150 million won was newly reflected for the establishment of an informatization strategic plan to build a smart system linking 119 emergency medical services with hospitals.

However, 360 million won was cut from three project budgets: the International Fire Expo, mental health treatment expenses, and basic expenses.