A foreign worker joins a rebuilding project in a flood-affected region. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
SEOUL, Nov. 28 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korean companies, facing chronic labor shortages, are turning to foreign workers to meet their needs. However, this move is facing strong opposition from the labor sector, which anticipates adverse effects on working conditions.
On November 27, the Ministry of Employment and Labor confirmed that the Foreign Labor Policy Committee has set the quota for foreign workers entering South Korea under the employment permit system for next year at 165,000. This represents a significant jump, standing at 3.2 times the figure recorded in 2021, which was 52,000.
Introduced in 2004, the employment permit system issues non-professional employment visas (E-9) and overseas Korean visas (H-2) to enable small and medium-sized enterprises struggling to find domestic labor to hire foreign workers. The scope of E-9 issuance, initially limited to agriculture, fisheries, manufacturing, construction, and some service industries, will expand to include restaurant businesses, mining, and forestry from next year.
Previously announced measures include extending the E-9 residence period from four years and 10 months to ’10 years + α.’
The government’s push to increase foreign workers is driven by consistent industry complaints about the difficulty of finding workers for jobs involving manual labor. Although the number of vacant positions is decreasing, government statistics reveal that as of September of this year there were still 215,269 job vacancies.
Breaking down the figures by industry, manufacturing led with 57,569 job openings, followed by the lodging and food service industries with 39,932, transportation and warehousing with 27,242, and the wholesale and retail industry with 24,788.
The prospect of a declining working-age population due to low birth rates and an aging society is also influencing the decision. While the proportion of the population aged 65 and over in South Korea reached 18.4 percent this year, the total fertility rate was only 0.78 as of last year.
Lee Kyu-yong, head of the Korea Labor Institute’s Employment Policy Research Division, commented, “If labor supply continues to decrease and industrial structure continues to change slowly, industries such as the service sector, manufacturing, shipbuilding, and construction, which cannot expect an inflow of domestic workers, have no choice but to make use of foreign labor.”
However, the Ministry of Employment and Labor maintained that the introduction of foreign labor should not negatively impact domestic employment.
A ministry official stated, “While it is undesirable for businesses to close due to a lack of workers, it is difficult to fill domestic jobs with foreign workers or erode opportunities for domestic workers.”
In response to the increase in foreign labor, the Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU) strongly criticized the move as “destructive to the labor market.” In a statement, the FKTU expressed concerns, stating that the government has taken the easy way out in ceding to businesses looking to hire immigrant workers for jobs where there is a shortage of domestic workers.
The FKTU argued, “Rather than simply allowing employers to push immigrant workers into jobs when there is a shortage of domestic workers, the government should find ways for domestic workers to be re-employed. Even if vacant jobs are filled with foreign workers, they will be left in the blind spot of the Labor Standards Act and end up in jobs that no one wants to do.”
The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) also voiced its concerns, stating, “Instead of focusing on improving wages and working conditions so that domestic workers can be employed in industries experiencing labor shortages, the attitude that there is an unlimited supply of foreign workers that can be used unconditionally is extremely worrisome.”
The KCTU went on to emphasize the need to develop measures to prevent human rights abuses experienced by foreign workers, stating, “Policies that continue to produce immigrant workers without rights must be stopped.”
M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
