The illegal rental of technician licenses held by staff at forestry corporations is widespread, an audit by the Board of Audit and Inspection found. Some 184 technicians registered with corporations were confirmed to be deceased individuals, prisoners, or overseas residents incapable of regular employment.
The Board of Audit and Inspection released the results of its regular audit of the Korea Forest Service on the 27th. In a survey of 16,970 technicians with a history of registration at forestry corporations from 2023 through May this year, 6,749 technicians (39.8%) belonging to 1,663 corporations were found to have possibly rented out their licenses illegally or had them misused.
Cases difficult to regard as regular workers — such as those without employment insurance enrollment or earned income — numbered 823, while 1,534 were overlapping earners with confirmed earned income from other companies. In addition, 4,307 people had a history of employment insurance enrollment or earned income records but earned 800,000 won or less per month.
After conducting field investigations based on personal information analysis, the Board of Audit found 184 people were deceased individuals, prisoners, or overseas residents incapable of regular employment.
Forty-seven people remained registered as belonging to forestry corporations for more than three months after their death, and nine of them were even newly registered with forestry corporations after they had died. There were 25 prisoners, 41 long-term overseas residents, and 71 people designated as long-term care recipients.
The Board of Audit handed over the list of these individuals to the Korea Forest Service, while requesting that the agency take appropriate measures such as revoking forestry technician qualifications and canceling forestry corporation registrations.
