Foreign Workers Gain Status in Korea

In general, foreign workers in Korea are known as doing difficult manual labor and suffering from employers’ exploitation and overdue wages.

However, the status of Asian foreign workers is changing now. Companies are rushing to hire high-salary skilled foreign workers rather than low-salary non-skilled ones.

Experts say, “With Korea competing against countries around the world to attract skilled foreign workers, the treatment of foreign workers in Korea is changing significantly.”

Seize Top-tier Asian Workers-

Korean companies are focusing on hiring top-tier workers from Asian countries, including India, China, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand. Those companies are remarkably improving the treatment of workers to prevent other companies at home and abroad from poaching them.

“H”, a major Korean company, gives Chinese skilled workers that it hires an opportunity to attend a concert by Korean “Hallyu” stars. There is another company which offers meals heavy on vegetables for Indian workers who do not eat meat.

Also, there is a consulting firm specialized in providing skilled Asian workers to Korean small-and-mid-sized companies

Why Asians?-

Korean companies are attracted by Asian foreign workers because the companies can secure workers as skilled as their counterparts in the U.S. and Europe for relatively low wages. For workers in India and the Philippines, their high command of English is also a draw to Korean companies.

As of September last year, 23,314 foreign workers were legally working in Korea on E1~E7 visa for expert engineers. China sent the most workers (2,457), followed by the Philippines (2,465), India (885), and Russia (877).

A personnel official at a computer parts company said, “Often, foreign workers, who learned skills by working in multinational corporations in Southeast Asia, are much better skilled than Korean workers,” adding, “It’s only natural that companies are attracted to them.”

Resolving the Education and Housing Problems is the Key-

With companies striving to poach top-tier Asian workers, the Ministry of Information and Communication, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Ministry of Justice are introducing various measures to facilitate entry into and departure from Korea, including the IT Card and Gold Card. However, it still takes more than a month for foreign workers to complete the procedures to enter Korea.

Company workers speak in unison that the housing and education problems should be resolved first to attract skilled Asian workers.

Se-Jin Jung mint4a@donga.com dell@donga.com