South Korea will overhaul unemployment benefit calculations for the first time in 22 years, counting six days rather than seven each week and excluding unpaid holidays. The change could reduce monthly payments by up to 230,000 won from next year. Based on next year’s minimum wage, payments at the floor would fall from 1.98 million won to 1.76 million won, while payments at the ceiling would decline from 2.04 million won to 1.81 million won. The total payment period, ranging from 120 to 270 days, and the total amount will remain unchanged, stretching payouts over a longer period. The employment insurance premium rate will rise from 1.8% to 2.0% in 2027, increasing the monthly premium for a worker earning 3 million won by 3,000 won to 30,000 won. The changes come as the employment insurance fund faces a structural deficit: its unemployment benefit account recorded a 1.8 trillion won deficit last year, while real reserves stood at negative 6 trillion won after accounting for 7.7 trillion won borrowed from the Public Capital Management Fund. Maternity protection spending, including parental leave, rose to 4.3 trillion won last year from 2.1 trillion won in 2022. Labor groups warn that low-wage unemployed workers will bear a heavier burden, while business groups say the overhaul does not fully address structural problems and may face a difficult legislative path. The Ministry of Employment and Labor’s next-year budget proposal totals 38.95 trillion won, up 3.4% from this year, with youth employment spending rising by 700 billion won to 3.3 trillion won. A new First-Job Support Program for Young Adults, worth 379.3 billion won, will provide tailored employment services to 160,000 people. The K-New Deal Academy will expand fivefold to 50,000 participants from 10,000. Of 95 major programs, 45, or 47%, are new, while 16 of 28 youth-policy programs, or 57%, are new. Seoul will add 17,500 Mirinae House units for newlyweds by 2030, or about 4,000 annually, and will continue an installment-based deposit scheme. Tenants pay 70% at move-in and defer the remainder at an annual interest rate of 2.73% until moving out. From April through August this year, 92% of 533 contracting households used the program, deferring a combined 76.5 billion won and reducing the initial payment burden by up to 30 percentage points. Seoul is also considering expanding priority purchase rights for children born before move-in; households with four or more children currently receive the benefit. Separately, retirement-pension demand pushed domestic bond-mixed ETF (exchange-traded fund) assets to 20.5792 trillion won as of the 31st of last month, up 156.5% this year from 8.0239 trillion won at the end of last year and eight times the 2.5604 trillion won recorded at the end of 2024. These funds, which hold 50% or less in equities, allow defined-contribution and individual retirement pension investors who have reached the 70% risky-asset limit to add stock exposure. New products are expanding into semiconductors, autos, space technology, gold and silver. Baek Han-hee, director of IBM’s Quantum Algorithm Center, said industrial use of quantum computing could spread rapidly from 2029. Baek said that once fault-tolerant quantum computers, or FTQC systems, arrive, software and algorithms rather than hardware will determine competition. IBM has built an ecosystem of about 350 partners since offering quantum computers through the cloud in 2016, and Baek advised Korea to focus on software and algorithm capabilities while pursuing long-term education and research investment to train a quantum-native generation. The briefing was produced through AI PRISM, a personalized news recommendation and summary service developed with support from the Korea Press Foundation. The service selects six news items for each reader type.