Martial Arts: "Half of Small and Medium Export Companies Willing to Hire Foreign Office Workers"

KITA Releases Report After Surveying 659 Companies
Foreign Office Workers Share Same Visa as Executives
High Wage Requirements Out of Touch With Business Realities

Amid worsening labor shortages in small and medium-sized export companies due to young people avoiding SMEs and a decline in the working-age population, it has been found that about half of small and medium-sized export companies are willing to hire foreign office workers.

On the 578th Hangeul Day last year, the 30th Foreigners' Hangeul Writing Contest was held on the 8th at the Korean Language Institute of the Language Research and Education Center at Yonsei University. Participants are writing according to the given topic. This event saw the participation of over 1,400 people from 66 countries. Photo by Younghan Heo younghan@

On the 16th, the Korea International Trade Association's International Trade and Commerce Research Institute announced this based on a survey conducted on 659 small and medium-sized export companies.

According to the KITA, 49.5% of all respondent companies stated that they "plan to newly hire foreign office workers within the next three years." 27% answered that they "have already hired foreigners for office, administrative, or research positions." In these cases, the satisfaction level with the hiring was generally high, scoring 3.8 out of 5.

The main reasons for hiring foreigners as office workers were "overseas market analysis" (39.4%), "foreign language proficiency" (20.6%), and "overseas networks" (19.3%). The response for "hiring to reduce labor costs" was 12.7%. Among the foreign office workers employed, those holding F visas such as Residence (F-2), Overseas Korean (F-4), and Marriage Immigrant (F-6) accounted for the largest share at 42.1%.

KITA explained, "This is because F visas do not impose additional visa burdens on hiring companies and do not restrict work activities." Those holding D visas, issued to foreign students studying in Korea such as Student (D-2) and Job Seeking (D-10), accounted for 29.7%.

Additionally, there are concerns that the current "Professional Employment Visa (E-7-1)" system, which foreign office workers can obtain under existing laws, acts as an obstacle to expanding the hiring of foreign office workers. This visa covers not only general office positions such as overseas sales representatives and translators/interpreters but also managerial positions equivalent to senior executives in companies, and therefore applies a wage requirement equivalent to 80% of the previous year's Gross National Income (GNI).

This amounts to about 39.96 million KRW annually. Considering the starting salary for foreigners, this is relatively high and even exceeds the average wage of new employees at SMEs, which KITA pointed out as a systemic constraint on expanding the hiring of foreign office workers.

Accordingly, KITA suggested the need to reclassify foreign office workers under the "Semi-professional Employment Visa (E-7-2)" to relax the wage requirements. If classified as semi-professionals, the wage requirement changes to "at least the minimum wage of the current year," which can reduce the burden on companies.

However, KITA conveyed that managerial positions equivalent to executives should remain under the existing Professional Employment Visa (E-7-1) with strict wage requirements to prevent potential infringement on domestic jobs.

Kim Kkotbyeol, a research fellow at KITA, said, "Small and medium-sized export companies are facing great difficulties in securing overseas marketing personnel, so the demand for foreign workers is expected to continue increasing," adding, "If wage requirements are relaxed through realistic visa system improvements, it will have a positive effect on alleviating labor shortages and securing competitiveness across the trade industry."