Immigration Laws: April, 1995 - Number #15

The Korean government has launched a program to 'internationalize' Korea's insular and homogeneous society. However, its attempts to use foreign trainees to curb labor shortages in Korea and provide the training needed to accelerate development in labor-surplus countries got off to a rough start.

In January 1995, Nepalese factory trainees held a nine-day sit-in at Seoul's Myongdong Cathedral, complaining that the trainee program begun in 1993, and administered by the Korea Federation of Small Business, was really a slave labor program. In January 1995, trainees were 19,000 of the 33,600 foreigners legally working in Korea. Most were from China, the Philippines, and India and Pakistan.

A survey by of 185 workers at an industrial complex in Seoul indicate that 42 percent were beaten.

Beginning in 1996, Korea plans to admit legal foreign workers--not trainees--who will have contracts and be guaranteed the same wages as Korean workers. Korea hopes to control illegal alien workers, who number about 50,000, by 1999. The government will increase the number of foreign industrial and trainee-workers to fill the gap in the industrial work force that results from the deportation of illegal workers.

The policy is based on the belief that the only way to fundamentally resolve the controversial issue of illegal foreign workers would be to eliminate foreign workers who overstay their visits and to improve the foreign trainee system. However, small industries depend heavily on illegal foreign workers who overstay their visits, and the labor ministry plans to reduce their number by deporting about 10,000 a year through 1999.

Immigration data indicate that overstaying foreign workers totaled 49,800 as of the end of January, 1995. They include 19,800 Korean-Chinese, 7,500 Filipinos, 5,000 Bangladeshis, 2,300 Pakistanis and 2,000 Nepalese. A total of 4,422 illegal foreign workers were deported in 1994, 894 of them forcibly and 3,528 voluntarily after they received exit orders.

Two Korean government agencies disagree on the employment and management of foreign workers. The Ministry of Labor is trying pass special laws to employ and manage foreign workers, but the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy is opposed to any law, saying it will impose a burden on smaller companies.

The Labor ministry has announced that, despite protests, it will introduce a minimum wage system for foreign trainees in Korea. However, a minimum wage might encourage some employers to reduce their outlays for lodging and boarding of foreign workers.

The technical trainees earn about US$20 per month. Many prefer to work illegally, since they can earn US$450 per month.

Bruce Cheesman, "Plight of Foreign Workers an Issue Ready to Explode," Australian Financial Review, March 21, 1995.
"Gov't Agencies Debate Issues Concerning Foreign Workers," Korea Economic Daily, March 10, 1995.
"South Korea takes measures to deport all illegal alien workers by 1999," BBC, March 9, 1995.