Low benefits make job loss a nightmare for workers

Korean workers will feel the brunt of an economic crisis more severely than other members of the OECD due to the country’s extraordinarily low unemployment benefits, a report showed yesterday.

Local labor authorities provided unemployed workers with financial aid worth 30.4 percent of their previous full-time wage for one year upon being laid off as of 2009, according to the OECD report titled “Employment Outlook 2011.”

The level of unemployment benefits lagged far behind the average 58.6 percent among the 34 OECD member countries and were the second worst after the Czech Republic’s 29.7 percent, the report showed.

The data is based on the average unemployment benefits provided to 40-year-old workers in the member countries.

Luxembourg granted the highest rate of unemployment benefits with 85.1 percent for the first year of joblessness. Britain paid out 33 percent of wages and the U.S. 44.9 percent, the report said. Poland was also among the lowest on the list.

Korean companies provide scant support for their former staff as they enter their second year of unemployment, providing just 0.6 percent of their former salary, it noted. This compares unfavorably with the OECD average of 40.4 percent, the report showed.

The results illustrate the feeble state of the nation’s social security system, which officially only helps the unemployed for the first 12 months after they are let go.

Yonhap