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| Chang Bo-mi |
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What image comes to mind when you think of the foreign workforce in Korea? I'm afraid to say, but for me, it is the 3Ds ― dirty, dangerous and demeaning work.
Machines forced to be operated on and on, extra work given without notice or even dreadful death by suffocation under the basement of a factory. These images may feel exaggerated, but we have already seen cases on the news since the early 2000s.
However, there is another type of foreign workforce in Korea, which I'll call the "professional" workforce.
For example, you may have heard of Pranav Mistry from India. He is a young computer scientist who showed "SixthSense" to the world. Interestingly, this highly qualified person entered Samsung and is currently working as a Global Senior Vice President of Research at Samsung.
Then, the question here is "how could companies like Samsung retain talent in this way?" I want to suggest the following two reasons: wage differentiation and the simplification of Korea's immigration visa policy.
Firstly, it can become possible to retain top professional talent in Korea through wage differentiation.
The Efficiency Wage Theory is known as Henry Ford's turning point. It was introduced by Marshall and it says employers minimize turnover by paying more than the market wage to stop the workers from looking for a job offer elsewhere.
I am not suggesting that we pay two times more than the average wage to foreign workers as Henry Ford did. There may well be a limit to increase monthly income. Instead, the extra money can be given in differentiated ways so that employees can benefit from a "Surpresent."
Surpresent here means a bonus given to employees unexpectedly, just like surprise present. In fact, nearly few people want to settle down in a foreign country for the rest of their lives. They have relatives in their home country and want to visit their hometown regularly.
Likewise, what those professional workforce members desire is not the subsidies that government gives, but corporate welfare like regular flight tickets, insurance payment covering family members, money deposits to parents' accounts or even tuition payment of Korean language education, which are more practical.
Through such differentiation, we can expect the employees to work productively and remain self-motivated over sustained periods in our country.
Secondly, Korea's immigration visa policy can help to retain top professional talent.
Immigrants make up only 2 percent of our population which is much less than other OECD countries. The UN categorizes "immigration" as stays of longer than 90 days in a foreign country. Those staying for a year or longer are classified as long-term migrants.
According to the Employee Permit System (EPS), the type of visa and length of stay differs depending on employment. However, what we need to look carefully at is the E-7 visa.
If a company can show the necessity and purpose of hiring foreigners with the required documents, we can give E-7 visas to foreigners in professional fields.
The problem is that once the professional foreigner is not allowed to get that visa, it's hard to register for the same type of occupation. For example, if one registered for the aquaculture profession and was rejected, registering for the aquaculture industry becomes more difficult next time.
The rejection depends on the documents they submit to the corresponding ministry. If you look into the list of documents to submit for employment recommendation, it shows a complex pile of papers to submit. Furthermore, the requirements for entry are stringent.
Here's a case ― you can get recommendation as a sea cucumber farming technician. The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries requires a master's degree in the science of fisheries or over seven years of experience in the sea cucumber farming field.
Yet, these requirements are too tough even for Koreans. Also, the Korean employer should guarantee the identity of foreigner, which is risky as the employer becomes responsible for liability. Relaxing the requirements for E-7 visas will encourage both more talented professionals to work in Korea and more employers to sponsor them.
In sum, what I suggest is offering corporate welfare style benefits to top professional talent in terms of wage differentiation and simplifying the immigration visa process, especially for E-7 visas.
In this way, employment benefit packages can become a life support for foreign workers. Likewise, lowering the required conditions for the E-7 and developing governmental sharing of the burden of liability with Korean employers will encourage immigration, both from the perspective of the employer and immigrant.
As recently as 2000, Korea had only 220,000 long-term international residents; 16 years later, the number is about seven times higher. In response to this change, some negative opinions are also arising, such as the lack of jobs for Koreans.
However, considering the fact that we will face a rapid decrease in population and an aging society, higher immigration can alleviate the speed of population decline. Furthermore, professional employees play the roles not only of producers but also of consumers, therefore, developing our economy.
Chang Bo-mi is a student at Konkuk University.
