254억 추경 받고 본예산도 못 쓴 청년일자리 사업…112억 ‘다른 용도로’

The government allocated an additional budget for the youth job creation support program last year, hoping to boost youth employment, but it appears that they failed to execute the entire budget. The Legislative Affairs Bureau (Office of Budget Planning) noted that the program is usually one that ends with surplus funds, yet they were careless in estimating the budget.

According to the Office of Budget Planning's 2025 Accounting Year Final Report released on the 17th, the Labor Ministry increased the youth job creation support program budget by about 254 billion won through the use of the emergency fund, bringing the total allocation to 8,026 billion won. They expanded the target group to include university students planning to graduate, raising the number of supported individuals from 100,000 to 107,000.

Moreover, they divided the long-term employment incentives paid out after employment into four-month, six-month, twelve-month, and eighteen-month intervals, resulting in additional expenditures last year. However, only around 7,188 billion won out of the allocated budget was actually spent, leaving 112 billion won unspent. The Labor Ministry explained that most of the unspent funds were used to cover the salaries of youth labor supervisors.

The youth job creation support program provides employment incentives to companies hiring young people on a long-term basis, with the maximum support amount being 72 million won for companies in the metropolitan area and 72 million won for companies in non-metropolitan areas. While not directly linked to the program, the Labor Ministry pointed out that some companies sometimes request all three installments of support at once, resulting in the delayed disbursement of funds the following year, which left unspent funds.