[Editorial] Foreign caregivers

One hundred Filipina child care workers entered the country Tuesday to participate in the pilot foreign caregiver program pushed jointly by the Seoul Metropolitan Government and the Ministry of Employment and Labor.

They are scheduled to provide child care and light household management services for six months from Sept. 3 after receiving four weeks of additional specialized training.

They have completed more than 780 hours of vocational training in caregiving in the Philippines, are certified by the Philippine government and have passed a background check.

They are said to be fluent in English and be able to communicate in Korean to some basic extent.

The program is open to Seoul families with children aged under 12, single parent households, households with multiple children, dual-income families and pregnant women. As of Aug. 1, 422 families had applied to employ Filipina caregivers through the program. The competition is considerably high.

This pilot program attracts attention largely because of high expectations that foreign workers can take on the burden of child care, which is often cited as a critical factor associated with the country's very low birth rate.

The reality is that demand for caregivers is soaring due to the rapid aging of society, at the same time as it has become more and more difficult to find people willing to work as caregivers.

According to data released by the Bank of Korea in March, the number of caregivers the country is lacking is expected to increase from 190,000 in 2022 to in the range of between 610,000 and 1.55 million in 2042, and the number of caregivers available to employ is forecast to fall to just 30 percent of the demand.

The central bank suggested utilizing foreign nationals as caregivers by extending the Employment Permit System to caregivers.

However, their service is still costly. The same hourly minimum wage all workers in Korea receive, which is 9,860 won ($7.16) this year, is applied to the Philippine caregivers while working here.

If they work for four hours a day, their monthly wage including the required four basic insurances will amount to 1.19 million won. If parents want to be free from infant care burden while they work, they will have to employ caregivers for at least eight hours a day. Then they will have to spend more than 2.38 million won a month, which is close to half of the median income (5.09 million won) for householders in their 30s.

This amount is burdensome to working-class families. It is also questionable if the program will be of much help in overcoming the country's low birth rate.

If the government tries to apply a differential minimum wage, related laws would have to be revised. This is never easy. Labor groups and the lawmakers they support will oppose such revisions. The issue will also become one of discrimination. Social consensus is needed, and public opinions should first be collected from the interested parties.

There are many other issues to be addressed.

Under the principles of the program, foreign caregivers should perform only "incidental" household management activities as reasonably required for the personal needs of the children being cared for, but such incidental work to child care is not explicitly defined.

Mechanisms for settling grievances or protecting the human rights of the foreign caregivers need to be set up to cope with the conflicts that may arise from this vague definition of household management activities.

Whether the program takes away jobs from Korean nationals or whether it can cause side effects such as illegal stays are issues to be examined closely.

It is also questionable if families are in fact interested in hiring foreign caregivers in order to get them to teach English to their children, rather than for child care reasons. The focus of the program should be on offering good care rather than teaching English proficiency.

Caregiving is an important source of employment for local women in their 50s and 60s. The government should figure out measures to protect job opportunities for older Korean women.

The government reportedly plans to bring in 1,200 additional foreign caregivers in the first half of next year. The target number does not matter. The government must first monitor the pilot program thoroughly, evaluate its effectiveness and draw up supplementary measures before expanding it.