SEOUL, Jun. 26 (Korea Bizwire) – A new study predicts that South Korea’s declining birth rate and shrinking population could lead to a significant labor shortage in key sectors by 2042, with over 600,000 fewer workers in restaurants and retail compared to 2022 levels. The forecast was presented by professor Lee Chulhee of Seoul National University [...]
HAENAM, Oct. 12 (Korea Bizwire) – Amidst a growing labor shortage in rural areas, a tragic incident unfolded among villagers engaged in a dispute over the availability of foreign labor during the busy planting season – a critical time for farmers. On Wednesday, the Haenam Branch of the Gwangju District Court handed down a 15-year prison [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 8 (Korea Bizwire) — Management and labor unions of South Korea’s major shipbuilders have reached a tentative agreement on wage negotiations, and such agreements included several solutions on how to deal with the shortage of workers facing domestic shipyards. Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. decided to provide employees who reached retirement age this year [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 31 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea decided Wednesday to increase the quota of foreign workers with non-professional employment visas for this year by 10,000 to alleviate pandemic-induced labor shortages in shipbuilding and other major industries, officials said. The government committee on foreign workforce policy finalized the plan to issue the E-9 visa to [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 8 (Korea Bizwire) — Hotels that were hit directly by the pandemic are now facing a labor shortage. The Korea Hotel Association conducted a survey of 20 hotels, which said they are 16.6 percent short of staff. Sorted by sector, the labor shortage in the food and beverages department was the highest at [...]
SEOUL, June 7 (Korea Bizwire) — With the labor shortage on construction sites becoming more severe, South Korea’s construction sector is calling on the government to lift restrictions on the hiring of foreign workers as well as to issue pardons to the companies that were imposed restrictions on hiring. During the period from late last [...]
SEOUL, May 10 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean shipyards are suffering from a labor shortage due mainly to massive layoffs years earlier, stoking concerns over output disruptions amid bumper orders, industry sources Tuesday. The local shipbuilding industry had a combined workforce of some 93,000 as of the end of last year, down a whopping 54 [...]
ANSEONG, Oct. 17 (Korea Bizwire) — Koh Jin-taek is proud of having built a small but stable farming business in Anseong, 77 kilometers south of Seoul, over the past two decades producing primarily lettuce, chicory and other types of leafy vegetables. He currently owns 44 vinyl greenhouses and had supplied nearly 10,000 kilograms of produce [...]
SEOUL, Feb. 15 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea will temporarily ease rules on the employment of foreign seasonal workers in the agriculture and fisheries sectors to cope with the labor shortage aggravated by the prolonged coronavirus pandemic, the Ministry of Justice said Monday. Under the temporary deregulatory measure, foreigners who are staying here without a [...]
SEOUL, July 29 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea will push to extend stay permits for foreign migrant workers who cannot return home due to the coronavirus pandemic, in a bid to relieve seasonal labor shortages in farming and other areas, a government agency said Wednesday. The Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters said that it [...]