An administrative adjudication decision has ruled that the Ministry of Employment and Labor's attempt to reclaim the 'Employment Stability Incentive' given to employers who received it as a substitute workforce for parental leave, by applying revised laws, was an incorrect disposition.
The Central Administrative Adjudication Committee under the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission announced on the 21st that it canceled the disposition by the A Regional Employment and Labor Office of the Ministry of Employment and Labor, which tried to reclaim the incentive paid by applying the amended law to an employer who had already met the requirements for receiving the Employment Stability Incentive. The Employment Stability Incentive is a system that supports part of the labor costs for substitute personnel hired by employers who grant their employees maternity leave and parental leave.
Employer B participated in the Employment Stability Incentive program in May 2020, before the revision of the Enforcement Decree of the Employment Insurance Act, granted maternity and parental leave to employees, and hired substitute worker C. After C voluntarily resigned, around February 2022, B hired another substitute worker D without any gap and received an incentive payment of 2.4 million KRW for six months.
Later, when B applied for the incentive again in November of the same year, the Labor Office ruled that D was not eligible for the incentive and reclaimed the 2.4 million KRW incentive payment. The reason was that the eligibility for the incentive ended with the resignation of substitute worker C, and the substitute workforce incentive system for existing parental leave was abolished from January 2022.
Regarding this, the Central Administrative Adjudication Committee judged that since A had already met the requirements for the incentive before the law was amended, it falls under the facts or legal relations completed before the enforcement of the revised decree. Furthermore, considering that the employer A had no fault or responsibility for the voluntary resignation of the existing substitute worker B, and taking into account the legislative purpose of the incentive system, the Labor Office's reclaim disposition was deemed illegal and unjust.
Park Jong-min, Vice Chairman of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission and Chairman of the Central Administrative Adjudication Committee, stated, "We will carefully review administrative adjudication cases to ensure that the rights and interests of the public are not unfairly infringed by the enforcement or application of new laws." He added, "The Central Administrative Adjudication Committee will continue to strive to prevent the infringement of public rights and interests due to illegal or unjust cases."
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
