[Reporter’s Notebook] We Must Not Hesitate to Overhaul the Foreign Employment System

Recently, a government official involved in efforts to improve regulations on foreign labor told reporters, "The government believes it must proactively address the issue of foreign employment," but also admitted, "The most troubling aspect is the negative public sentiment."

As this statement suggests, public opinion on expanding foreign employment is not very favorable. Many people interpret the increase in foreign employment as a reduction in jobs for domestic workers. Most comments on our recent article reporting the government's push to ease overseas labor regulations reflected this view. Comments such as "If too many young Southeast Asian foreigners take (service industry) jobs, unemployment among Korean youth will worsen," and "Stop accepting foreign workers... (omitted)... low-income workers will be hit even harder," filled the comment section.

The reality is quite different. According to the government, as of the second quarter of this year, there are 215,000 vacant jobs. This is even higher than the 176,000 vacancies in the second quarter of 2019, before COVID-19. Voices about severe labor shortages are emerging across most industries, including trade, shipbuilding, service, and construction sectors. According to a recent survey by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry of 502 companies employing foreign workers, the most cited reason for the shortage of foreign labor was "additional vacancies caused by domestic workers leaving their jobs" (41.5%).

A senior government official said, "While we need to solve the low birthrate problem in the long term, we cannot just stand by for over 20 years in the meantime." The explanation was that expanding the introduction of overseas labor is a practical alternative. The government estimates that the working-age population, which peaked in 2019, will decrease by 3.82 million by 2030. It is clear as day that the labor shortage problem will become more severe.

In 2018, Japan expanded the scope of overseas labor introduction to cover all occupations facing labor shortages. It also decided to abolish the ‘Technical Intern Training Program,’ which is similar to Korea’s Employment Permit System. The current Employment Permit System restricts the industries, timing, and scale of employment for low-skilled foreign workers as determined by the government. This system alone is insufficient. Now is the time to consider expanding overseas labor introduction more flexibly.