[Insight & Opinion] Industrial Accidents Among Foreign Workers and the Role of the Government

Assigned to Hazardous Processes at Small Businesses
Industrial Accident Fatality Rate Seven Times Higher Than Domestic Workers
Tax Deductions for Companies Investing in Safety and Health

These days, the cautionary signs at construction sites are not written only in Korean. They are not written solely in Chinese either. At large construction sites, the morning safety training broadcasts are usually conducted in more than five foreign languages. Foreign workers of various nationalities are working throughout our industrial sites. Even rural and fishing villages cannot operate without foreign workers. Foreign workers can be found not only at apartment construction sites or shipyards but also in restaurants, convenience stores, hospitals, and everywhere else.

According to the 2023 employment survey by Statistics Korea, the number of migrant workers currently working in Korea was 975,000. Adding an estimated 419,000 undocumented workers, the total number of migrant workers reaches 1.3 million. When counting all kinds of foreign workers, the number is believed to exceed 2 million. This means about one in every ten employed persons is a foreign worker.

Fundamentally, Korea has a higher industrial accident fatality rate than traffic accident fatality rate. Most industrial accidents occur at small-scale businesses with fewer than 50 employees. Eight out of ten fatal accident victims work at businesses with fewer than 50 employees. Although migrant workers are employed in various industries, their jobs are generally unstable, and the companies are not large. Seven out of ten foreign workers are employed at businesses with fewer than 30 employees. Such workplaces tend to neglect safety, and it is common to assign the most dangerous tasks to migrant workers.

Because dangerous tasks are often filled by migrant workers who frequently change jobs, over the past four years, 10 out of every 100 workers who died from industrial accidents in Korea were migrant workers. The industrial accident fatality rate for foreign workers is said to be seven times higher than that of domestic workers. In the past three years, 272 foreign workers died from industrial accidents. The fire accident on June 24 at a primary battery factory in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, which killed 23 people including 18 foreign workers, is just one recent example.

Preventing industrial accidents is difficult no matter how much emphasis is placed on it. Strengthening regulations and penalties is a fundamental prescription. For profit-driven companies, especially small businesses struggling to survive, investing in industrial accident prevention is a burdensome cost. Revising laws and systems is necessary but not sufficient. Existing regulations are not properly enforced. Safety training is often formalistic, and illegal dispatch disguised as subcontracting is too common. The government's role does not end with making laws and strengthening monitoring and penalties. It must also help ensure that laws and regulations are followed. To prevent business owners from viewing safety and health investments merely as costs, tax reduction benefits could be expanded for safety and health investments. Support for safety training is even more necessary for small businesses.

Our attitudes toward foreign tourists from the West and foreign workers from Southeast Asia differ greatly. Racial discrimination based on skin color and language differences and hostility toward migrant workers are realities in our society. However, Korea is rapidly becoming a multicultural society. Changing societal perceptions is not simple, but efforts must be made. The reason the U.S. and Europe prohibit racial discrimination by law is not because racial discrimination does not exist, but because the need to live together is so great. For a country with a declining population like ours, immigration and the expansion of foreign workers are unavoidable alternatives.

However, our society has not yet deeply considered the socio-economic issues arising from employing foreigners. In fact, the era when foreign workers can be easily found will not last long. This is because the global population decline is reversing the supply and demand for foreign workers.

Kim Sangcheol, Economic Commentator