Seoul mulls hiring foreign nationals as local bus drivers

The Seoul Metropolitan Government announced on Monday that it is pushing to hire foreign nationals as bus drivers on local community routes as the city struggles to deal with a chronic manpower shortage in the transportation sector.

The city government requested last month that the Office for Government Policy Coordination expand the E-9 visa program to include the transportation sector and to extend the employment period for E-9 visa holders from three to five years. Currently, E-9 visas are issued to foreign nationals working in non-professional sectors such as manufacturing and agriculture. The scheme has been compared to a pilot project launched in September, under which households in Seoul are able to hire women from the Philippines as domestic workers.

These local buses, known in Korean as “maeul” buses, operate on short routes within a given community to connect residents to key locations and facilities in the district, including larger bus stops and subway stations.

Companies that operate the maeul buses in Seoul are struggling with labor shortages as not enough people apply to replace the drivers who retire.

According to the Seoul Institute, there needs to be an average of 2.48 drivers per bus to fully operate all 1,638 village buses in the city. However, as of October, the industry saw a shortage of around 600 drivers, or about 20 percent.

To address the shortage of maeul bus drivers, the Seoul Institute added that the industry would need to hire up to 1,247 foreign national drivers.

The city government added that the maeul bus companies are also struggling with aging issues, as drivers in their 60s account for 1,322 of the 2,815 total drivers as of September this year. This was followed by drivers in their 50s and 70s, with 565 drivers and 536 drivers, respectively.

“It is not easy to find people to drive the maeul buses. The aging of maeul bus drivers is a serious problem that the city can no longer ignore,” said a city government official. “If the Labor Ministry can resolve the visa issue for foreign national drivers before the year is over, the city government anticipates it will launch the pilot project next year.”

The Labor Ministry also issued a statement on Monday, clarifying that it has not yet decided whether to implement this measure but is "carefully reviewing" the proposal. It is evaluating the appropriateness of allowing E-9 visa holders to work as bus drivers, taking into account the qualifications, skills, and nature of the work.

Some foreign nationals can already, in theory, work as bus drivers on the Work and Visit visa or on overseas Korean visas, known as the H-2 and F-4 visas, respectively. However, the city government stated that foreign nationals account for less than 2 percent of the city's maeul bus drivers, as the F-4 visa is only granted to individuals of Korean descent.