Haengsimwi: "Payment of Employment Incentives Does Not Violate 'Obligation to Prevent Layoffs'"
On June 1st, a poster titled 'Improvement of Security Guard Titles' was displayed at an apartment in Seongdong-gu, Seoul. / Photo by Mun Ho-nam munonam@
[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Moon Chaeseok]
#A, a comprehensive real estate management company, received a request from the building owner, whose building it was managing, to directly employ the building manager B, who had been directly hired on January 1, 2019. After receiving a promise to maintain B’s employment contract conditions, A terminated the consignment management contract with the building and processed B’s resignation on October 1 of the same year. The building owner requested A to manage the building again on January 1 of the following year, and A re-employed B to continue working as the building manager. The Labor Office did not provide employment promotion subsidies to A on the grounds that A had transferred B during the layoff prevention period, and A filed an administrative appeal.
In cases like this, where a company managing under consignment dispatches an affiliated worker and then, due to accepting a direct employment request, inevitably processes resignation and re-employment, an administrative appeal ruled that this is not a violation of the layoff prevention obligation. The layoff prevention obligation is one of the conditions for receiving employment subsidies.
On the 28th, the Central Administrative Appeals Committee of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission announced that the Labor Office’s disposition to withhold employment subsidies based on violation of the layoff prevention obligation was illegal. According to the Enforcement Decree of the Employment Insurance Act, the head of the employment security agency must provide 600,000 KRW per month for one year to employers who hire unemployed persons registered at the employment center and who have completed employment support programs for more than six months and do not transfer them during the layoff prevention period. The layoff prevention period is from three months before employment to one year after employment.
The Appeals Committee judged that A’s decision to accept the building owner’s request to directly employ B did not contain any intention to exclude B from work. It was also confirmed that B worked under the same employment conditions during the building owner’s direct employment period and after re-employment by A until the administrative appeal was filed. Based on this, the Appeals Committee canceled the Labor Office’s disposition, stating that A cannot be considered to have violated the layoff prevention obligation.
Min Seongsim, Director of the Administrative Appeals Bureau of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission, said, "Through this administrative appeal, we expect that unfair administration where employers who have substantively protected workers’ jobs fail to receive support due to formal job changes will decrease."
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