56,000 foreign workers will be allowed to enter the local labor market under the employment permit system(EPS) next year.
The government held the foreign workforce policy committee on December 19 at the Seoul Regional Office of the Ministry of Employment and Labor(MOEL) and announced the plan to “accept 56,000 foreign workers on E-9 visas under the 2019 employment permit system, the same number as this year.”
The number of new entries decreased to 43,000, down by 2,000, but the number of re-entries increased to 13,000, up by 2,000,
The number of foreign workers for next year was decided, taking into the consideration the number of foreign workers whose permits expire(40,807) and the number of foreign workers who will replace the undocumented foreign workers(10,000) and the number of new entries by the employers’ needs(5,193). Government Policy Coordination Minister Noh Hyeong-ouk explained that “the decision was made at the level to assist the proper labor force utilization for the small and medium-sized enterprises which are experiencing chronic labor shortage and at the same time mitigate the encroaching effect on job opportunities for the vulnerable groups of local workers.”
The government increased to 4,000 foreign workers as the flexible allocation quota(α) for next year, up by 2,000 from this year. The flexible allocation quota system is designed, without setting the labor force allocation by the industry in advance, to assign foreign workers in accordance with the ratio of the employers’ needs by the industry against the allocated number of foreign workers(competition ratio), which will come to know in the first half of the year as an outcome of the effective employers’ needs for the new entry foreign labor force.
The number of foreign workers allocated by the industries for next year is as follows: manufacturing(28,880 + α1), agriculture and livestock(5,450 +α2), fishery(2,300 + α3), construction(2,280 + α4), and service(90 + α5).
The government has also decided to expand the application of ‘re-entry of sincere foreign workers’ to tackle the labor shortage of small and medium-sized manufacturing companies from less than 50 employees to less than 100 employees, which can rehire their foreign workers whose E-9 visas expired and returned home after 3 months of their departure from Korea.
The quota for ethnic Korean with foreign nationality on H-2 visas under the visitor employment system to stay and work in Korea is set at 303,000, the same number as this year. The quota for the construction industry is lowered to 55,000, as the government regulates the number of ethnic Koreans with foreign nationality in the construction industry under the ‘construction industry employment registration system’, with the possibility to readjust the quota increase by 5,000 at the maximum during the year.
reported by Bae Hye-jung
translated by Kim Sung-jin