SEJONG (Yonhap News) ― South Korea is considering raising its re-entry quota for foreign workers seeking to find jobs in labor-intensive fields as part of efforts to ease their chronic labor shortage problems, government officials said Wednesday.
According to the officials from the finance ministry, labor ministry and other related agencies, the government is mulling hiking the quota in such labor-intensive areas as the agricultural, livestock and fishery industries as well as small-scale manufacturing.
The re-entry quota is the maximum number of foreign workers allowed to work in South Korea again after their visas for their previous employment expire.
If their previous employment period ends, foreign workers have to leave Korea and wait for at least six months to get a job again here. The re-entry permission would shorten the waiting period to three months and exempt foreign workers from the Korean language proficiency test.
The move is expected to help ease chronic workforce shortages in such labor-intensive areas being mostly shunned by local workers, experts said.
The government is likely to report the plan and other measures designed to boost the overall investment in the corporate sector to President Park Geun-hye next week, the sources said.
“The re-entry quota will be adjusted in consideration of the overall labor market situations,” a government official said on condition of anonymity. “We expect that the (labor) market conditions could improve if we succeed in tackling this matter.”
