The number of people who collected unemployment benefits at least twice within the past five years climbed to nearly 500,000 last year, data showed Thursday. While the total number of recipients fell by more than 53,000 compared with four years ago, repeat claimants increased by more than 51,000 over the same period — meaning roughly 3 in 10 recipients have now drawn benefits multiple times.
Total unemployment benefit payouts have also risen for three consecutive years since 2022, reaching 12.37 trillion won ($8.74 billion) last year — the highest in five years. Analysts attribute the increase in part to a structure that ties the minimum benefit floor to the minimum wage, pushing payouts higher as the minimum wage rises.
The figures come from data Rep. Kim So-hee of the People Power Party, a member of the National Assembly's Climate, Energy, Environment and Labor Committee, obtained from the Ministry of Employment and Labor on Thursday. Total unemployment benefit recipients last year numbered about 1.722 million.
Of those, about 496,000 — or 28.8 percent of all recipients — had collected benefits at least twice within the preceding five years, based on payment dates. That means roughly 3 in every 10 recipients had drawn unemployment benefits more than once in the past five years.
The number of repeat claimants dipped from 445,000 in 2021 to 437,000 in 2022, then rose for three straight years: 474,000 in 2023, 490,000 in 2024 and 496,000 last year. Compared with 2021, the figure has grown by 51,000, or 11.5 percent.
Over the same period, total recipients fell from about 1.775 million to about 1.722 million, a drop of 53,000. As a result, the share of repeat claimants among all recipients rose from 25.1 percent in 2021 to 28.8 percent last year, an increase of 3.7 percentage points.
Payouts followed a similar upward trend. Annual disbursements fell from 12.06 trillion won in 2021 to 10.91 trillion won in 2022, then climbed for three consecutive years — 11.31 trillion won in 2023, 11.74 trillion won in 2024 and 12.37 trillion won last year, the highest in the five-year period.
Compared with 2021, the number of recipients last year was down 53,000, yet total payouts rose by 303 billion won. Officials say the increase despite fewer recipients reflects the rising minimum benefit floor, which is linked to the minimum wage.
Under the current system, unemployment benefits are calculated at 60 percent of a claimant's average pre-separation wage, with a floor set at 80 percent of the minimum wage. When the minimum wage rises, the benefit floor rises with it.
The consistent growth in repeat claimants has prompted concern that unemployment benefits risk becoming a recurring payment cycling between short stints of employment and joblessness, rather than a genuine safety net for re-employment. Calls are growing for systemic reforms to reduce cases in which people repeatedly cycle through brief employment and unemployment to collect benefits multiple times.
"Unemployment benefits must not come to be seen as a recurring 'jobless bonus' rather than a ladder back to employment," Rep. Kim said. "We need to put in place institutional safeguards that reduce repeat claims and strengthen the original purpose of unemployment benefits — promoting re-employment."
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