Groups of foreign workers wait for buses at Incheon International Airport, July 7. Yonhap

SMEs complain about tough regulations on hiring foreigners

By Park Jae-hyuk

The COVID-19 pandemic has dealt an especially severe blow over the past two years to domestic industries that have relied heavily on immigrant workers, as their arrival has been delayed due to quarantine measures.

In addition to farmers and fishermen, small and medium-sized manufacturers have been viewed as major victims of the foreign workforce shortage.

According to Rep. Sung Il-jong of the ruling conservative People Power Party, more than 50,000 foreign workers have had to wait to enter Korea over the past two years, even if employment permits have been issued for them. The lawmaker said that 73 percent of them are supposed to work for manufacturers.

The government has therefore accelerated its efforts to enable their prompt arrival, intended to reassure small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) working with shipbuilders, machinery manufacturers and carmakers.

While the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Ministry of Justice announced in April that rules on the E-7 visa would be eased partially to allow more foreign welders, painters, electrical engineers and plant engineers to work for subcontractors of local shipbuilders, the Ministry of Employment and Labor said last month that it aims to enable at least 10,000 foreign workers to arrive in Korea every month during the second half of this year.

The labor ministry also plans to issue employment permits at once during the third quarter, instead of finishing the procedure by the fourth quarter, so that SMEs can escape the labor shortage as soon as possible.

"In collaboration with relevant ministries, we will accelerate our efforts to enable more foreign workers to enter Korea by the end of this year," Labor Minister Lee Jung-sik said.

Industry officials, however, have raised questions as to whether the government measures are effective enough to solve the labor shortage facing SMEs.

Shipbuilding subcontractors, for example, have urged the government to abolish the 20 percent cap on the proportion of foreigners in their workforce.

Those companies have scrambled to attract foreign workers from other companies by offering higher wages. Despite the recent recovery of the shipbuilding industry, former employees have not returned after they left shipyards after the industry slumped in 2016.

"Due to the intensifying labor shortage, our neighboring company took over 50 foreign workers away from our company, leading us to give up on receiving orders worth 80 billion won ($61.5 million) this year," Yuil President Yu In-suk said last month, during a conference in Yeongam, South Jeolla Province, where Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries' shipyard and Daehan Shipbuilding's factory are located.

SMEs engaging in different industries made similar requests to the Yoon Suk-yeol administration.

"Considering the growing demand for foreign workers, the quota on their proportion should be reformed," Gyeonggi Foundry Cooperative Association Chairman Kim Dong-hyun said at a conference co-hosted by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups and the Korea Federation of SMEs in Hanam, Gyeonggi Province, July 7.

Kim added that he hopes the upper limit to the proportion of foreign workers at companies hiring less than 50 employees will be raised to 50 percent from the current 20 percent.

He also asked the government to prevent foreign workers from changing their workplaces more than three times during their four years and 10 months of working in Korea. At this moment, foreign workers can change their place of employment up to five times.

"Almost half of foreign workers have changed their place of work within six months after joining a company," Kim said.

Vice Minister of SMEs and Startups Cho Ju-hyeon promised that the government will pursue omnidirectional deregulation.

Kim Moon-sil, head of the labor ministry's foreign workforce division, however, said that the government will maintain a cautious stance about regulating foreign workers' ability to find a new employer if they so wish because such draconian regulations could infringe on their right to choose different jobs.

A member of the Migrants' Trade Union pickets in front of the Seoul Regional Employment and Labor Administration office, during a rally held on May Day in this May 1 file photo. Newsis

Need for better labor conditions

Some critics argue that SMEs are trying to solve their labor shortage through a reliance on a foreign workforce, instead of improving labor conditions in order to attract Korean jobseekers.

When the justice ministry decided to ease rules on the E-7 visa, unionized workers of Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) criticized the decision, claiming that the policy does not solve the fundamental problem of the urgent need to improve labor conditions and pay.

"The government's plan to increase the number of immigrant workers shows that it failed to recognize that the labor shortage in the shipbuilding industry has resulted from low wages of subcontracted workers," the HHI union said at that time.

The union also pointed out the possibility of more accidents, citing communication difficulties.

Human rights activists have urged employers to improve the residential living conditions and working conditions of their foreign employees, before requesting more immigrant workers.

Data given by the labor ministry to independent lawmaker Rep. Youn Mee-hyang showed that 358 foreign workers had died between 2017 and 2021 ― among E-9 visa holders staying in Korea during the period.

According to the data, 144 died from disease, even though they underwent medical checkups before their arrival in the country. The number of foreign workers who died from industrial accidents reached 83.