Jungbu Employment Office Lowers Loan Interest Rates for Workers with Unpaid Wages
Locates Absconding Employers and Conducts Arrest Investigations on Malicious Wage Arrears and Asset Concealment
Incheon City, the Central Regional Employment and Labor Office, and the Incheon District Prosecutors' Office held a meeting on the 26th to discuss responses to wage arrears ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday. [Photo by Incheon District Prosecutors' Office]
[Asia Economy Reporter Park Hyesook] Incheon City, the Central Regional Employment and Labor Office, and the Incheon District Prosecutors' Office will intensively monitor wage arrears from the 27th until the 10th of next month ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday.
On the 26th, these organizations held a meeting at the Incheon District Prosecutors' Office to prevent wage arrears and promote early resolution, designating the three weeks before the Lunar New Year as a focused guidance period and decided to implement institution-specific measures to protect workers.
According to the prosecution, from 2019 to last year, there were about 24,800 wage arrears cases in the Incheon area, with the amount of unpaid wages reaching 161.9 billion KRW.
First, Incheon City plans to make early payments of construction fees to employers for construction sites ordered by local governments, and send advance payment notification text messages to workers and others.
The city will ensure that construction fees are paid within three days from the billing date and encourage subcontract payments to be made in cash.
The Central Employment Office will provide loans up to 10 million KRW for workers affected by wage arrears and reduce the interest rate from the existing annual 1.5% to 1%, offering livelihood support.
Additionally, a wage arrears clearance task force will be formed to immediately respond and guide clearance in case of collective wage arrears. If illegal subcontracting is identified during the wage arrears case handling process, guidance for clearing arrears will be given to the direct upper-tier contractor (the original contractor or subcontractor one level above the subcontractor), and non-compliance will be reported to the local government.
The Incheon District Prosecutors' Office, jointly with the Central Employment Office, will identify the whereabouts of wage arrears employers whose prosecutions were suspended from 2018 to last year and encourage them to pay the overdue wages. During this period, 1,310 wage arrears cases were suspended from prosecution, with unpaid wages amounting to 7.8 billion KRW.
The prosecution plans to actively provide opportunities for settlement during investigations and expand the scope of non-custodial trials for wage arrears offenders to enable victim relief during court proceedings.
For employers who intentionally and habitually withhold large amounts of wages or deliberately conceal assets and flee, arrest and investigation will be the principle.
However, considering the difficulties faced by small businesses due to the COVID-19 pandemic, strict measures will be focused mainly on large-scale workplaces.
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