"False Unemployment Claims Despite Receiving Back Wages"…380 Unemployment Benefit Fraudsters Caught

Special Inspection on Fraudulent Unemployment Benefit Claims for Proxy Applications During Overseas Stay Until Year-End

Cases of abusing the advance payment and unemployment benefits systems by receiving advance payments for unpaid wages while working and falsely reporting unemployment to employment centers to receive unemployment benefits have been identified through a special inspection.

On the 5th, the Ministry of Employment and Labor conducted a special inspection on fraudulent claims of unemployment benefits (May to July 2023), which have increased in scale since COVID-19, and detected 380 fraudulent claimants and a fraudulent amount of 1.91 billion KRW (including additional collection, a return order of 3.62 billion KRW). For 217 individuals involved in serious criminal acts such as high-value fraudulent claims, judicial actions were also taken, including referral to the prosecution with an indictment opinion.

This special inspection was conducted to strictly address cases where individuals, despite being employed and receiving wages or receiving advance payments for unpaid wages, falsely reported unemployment to employment centers and fraudulently received unemployment benefits, thereby abusing both the advance payment and unemployment benefits systems.

Advance payment is a system where the government pays a certain range of unpaid wages on behalf of the employer. Since the confirmed working period at the time of advance payment is considered employment status, receiving unemployment benefits is not allowed.

The Ministry of Employment and Labor cross-checked the unemployment recognition periods and workplace employment periods for unemployment benefit recipients who received advance payments. For online unemployment recognition recipients, they analyzed the IP addresses of unemployment recognition applications submitted via the internet to intensively investigate whether employment was concealed and unemployment benefits were fraudulently claimed.

As a result of the inspection, 131 individuals were found to have overlapping periods between unemployment recognition and confirmed working periods at the time of advance payment (targeting 2022 recipients), with a detected fraudulent amount of 340 million KRW, indicating a decrease in fraudulent claims.

Starting this month, the Ministry of Employment and Labor will launch a special inspection on fraudulent unemployment benefit claims for the second half of the year (November 1 to December 31). They will intensively investigate until the end of the year whether proxy unemployment recognition applications were submitted on behalf of 1,850 recipients who had overlapping unemployment recognition days and overseas stay periods last year, and take strict measures accordingly.

Lee Jeong-han, Director of Employment Policy at the Ministry of Employment and Labor, stated, "Fraudulent claims of unemployment benefits are serious criminal acts, and special judicial police officers, employment insurance investigators, are rigorously cracking down through special inspections and planned investigations, so they will definitely be detected. We will do our utmost to eradicate fraudulent claims by continuously strengthening prevention and detection activities while supporting reemployment promotion and livelihood stabilization so that unemployment benefits can be a reliable support for vulnerable groups."

On the 5th, job seekers hoping to receive unemployment benefits are waiting to apply for unemployment benefits at the Employment Welfare Plus Center in Jung-gu, Seoul. Photo by Jinhyung Kang aymsdream@

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.