Unemployment Measures

[Anchor Lead]

The government has set aside a budget to take on the disastrous unemployment rate among young people. Now the ball is in the National Assembly's court, but the budget plan is facing a tough road to approval, since the opposition camp is calling it a stop-gap measure designed by the government to win in the upcoming general elections.

[Pkg]

An extra budget of 3.9 trillion won was approved at an extraordinary cabinet meeting. 2.9 trillion won out of it will be used in supporting youth employment. For the next three years young people newly hired by small and medium businesses will be eligible to receive up to 10.35 million won per year in subsidy. Those who are already employed will also be subsidized with 7.65 million won for the first three years. The extra budget will mainly be used to expand the existing employment support measures. However, the small business bonus compensation plan received only about half of last year's budget. The bonus program was set up to provide a lump sum of 30 million won to small business employees. This part is likely to be source of friction in getting parliamentary approval. Discussions on extra budget will be in full swing next week as Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon is set to address the National Assembly about the plan.