Quota for foreign workers under the employment permit system for 2010 stands at 24,000

More foreign workers will be admitted in for manufacturing, agriculture and livestock industry and the number of ethnic Korean workers would freeze at the same level as last year.

The number of foreign workers to be admitted in to get hired by domestic companies under the employment permit system this year was set at 24,000. The government held the Foreign Workforce Policy Committee on March 31 and decided to cut this year’s quota for foreign workers by 10,000 from 34,000 to 24,000.

The quota for foreign workers falls compared to last year, but there is no quota for ethnic Koreans abroad (H-2 visa) this year. This allows an addition of 7,000 foreign workers (E-9 visa). In particular, for the manufacturing industry, 19,500 foreign workers was allotted, which is 6,500 more workers than last year’s 13,000.

The number for the agriculture and livestock industry, where it faces difficulty hiring Korean workers, doubled from 1,000 to 2,000. However, the number of foreign workers for the construction sector decreased by 400 for the issue of a tight job market, and that for the services industry of which most jobs were taken by ethnic Koreans abroad, reduced in a large scale from 6,000 to 100.

The E-9 visa holding foreign workers will come from 15 countries including Vietnam, Thailand, Mongolia, etc. under the Employment Permit System. As for H-2 visa holding ethnic Koreans with foreign nationality, the current number will be maintained with monitoring of the total number from this year. Last year, 17,000 ethnic Koreans from foreign countries were admitted in as being included in the total quota for foreign workforce. In addition, it is allowed that ethnic Koreans up to two persons can be hired at 372 tourist hotels to invigorate the tourism industry.

On the other hand, according to the ‘Plan for Foreign Workforce Introduction’ released on March 31, the current decision-making on the quota will be reviewed. For now, permits are being issued from the end-March or early April, but the demand for foreign workforce is high between February and April. In addition, the mandatory period requiring domestic companies to look for Korean workers before filing a request for a permit for foreign worker is to extend from 7 to 14 days in order to spur employment of domestic workers. And when domestic companies refuse to hire workers recommended by a national job center without a justifiable reason, sanctions such as reject of employment permit, etc. would be imposed on them and at the same time incentives such as employment investment tax break, etc. will be given to the companies which hire more domestic workers.

In overall, this year’s decision on the quota for foreign workers was made both to protect jobs for local workers and meet the demand from small and medium companies suffering from labor shortage. The drastic fall of quota from 100,000 in 2007 to 34,000 in 2008 was caused by the deteriorating domestic employment situation in the wake of the economic crisis. Employers of SMEs insisted that the quota should be expanded since they have been suffering from labor shortage and Korean workers shun jobs offered by small companies.

Source: KOILAF (Korea International Labour Foundation)