Busan Chamber of Commerce Conducts Survey on Foreign Student Employment Awareness and Opinions... Focus on Solutions to Overcome Labor Shortage

25.6% of Companies Intend to Hire International Students
Preference for Associate Degrees, Southeast Asian Backgrounds, and Manufacturing Skills

Amid the increasing difficulty local companies face in recruiting skilled technical workers due to young people avoiding industrial sites and the outflow from Busan, foreign international students who have received specialized education at local universities are emerging as an important alternative to overcoming the labor shortage.

The Busan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Chairman Yang Jae-saeng) announced on the 15th the results of the “Survey on Awareness and Opinions Regarding the Employment of Foreign International Students by Busan Area Companies,” which gathered opinions on the intention to hire foreign international students, purposes, and types of jobs from 503 major local companies.

According to the survey, even though the hiring of foreign international students has not been actively carried out, 13.5% of the responding companies reported having experience hiring foreign international students. Among these, 63.9% were hired under the specialized employment E-7 visa, which is higher than short-term employment such as part-time jobs (36.1%).

Among companies with experience hiring foreign international students, 91.2% expressed high satisfaction, stating that the results in terms of productivity and other performance aspects were comparable to those of domestic workers.

Compared to other types of foreign workers such as those with E-9 visas, the advantages of foreign international students were identified as higher expertise (35.3%) and productivity (27.9%), followed by Korean language proficiency (16.2%), cultural adaptability (7.4%), and work ethic (5.9%).

In fact, when asked about opinions and intentions regarding hiring foreign international students, 45.7% of the responding companies expected that expanding the employment of foreign international students would directly help alleviate their labor shortages. The proportion of companies directly hoping to hire new employees was also high at 25.6%, indicating a strong potential for foreign international students to be utilized as the workforce needed by local companies in the future.

The educational level of foreign international students preferred by local companies was highest for associate degrees at 60.6%, followed by four-year bachelor’s degrees (37.2%) and master’s degrees or higher (2.2%). Preferred nationalities were led by Southeast Asia, including Vietnam, at 41.4%, followed by no nationality preference (33.2%), China (9.7%), Uzbekistan (6.2%), North America (3.4%), and Nepal (2.6%).

The most important competency evaluated by local companies was work attitude at 30.0%. This reflects a tendency to emphasize work attitude due to the higher burden of managing foreign workers compared to domestic workers. This was followed by Korean language proficiency (20.3%), job proficiency and work experience (17.9%), adaptability to Korean culture (11.6%), and English language proficiency (9.4%).

The job category local companies most want to hire foreign international students for was manufacturing and production at 64.2%. This reflects expectations to resolve the severe labor shortage in the production sector, followed by office administration (11.5%), transportation and logistics (10.3%), sales and marketing (8.9%), and research and development (2.2%).

However, under the current system, the E-7 visa required for hiring foreign international students does not permit approval for simple manufacturing and production workers, which are the most needed by companies, causing an imbalance between labor demand and the system.

A representative from the Busan Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s research team stated, “As the need for specialized capabilities such as the introduction of smart factories is increasing even in local companies’ production sites, it is necessary to improve the scope of job requirements for the E-7 visa.” They added, “In the long term, Busan City should utilize measures such as the metropolitan visa it is promoting to improve employment and settlement conditions for foreign international students, using this as a solution to the decline in the youth population and labor shortages.”