Jung Min-ho has worked as a staff writer at The Korea Times since 2012, mostly covering social and political issues. He currently belongs to the Politics & City Desk where he covers topics such as health, labor and human rights. Prior to joining the team, he was responsible for covering North Korea and sports. His article about a biosecurity breach of Middle East respiratory syndrome won him an award from the Korea Science Journalists Association in 2016. He is also the co-author of the book, "Medical Pioneers of Korea" (2019). He served as the head of the international relations committee at the Journalists Association of Korea from 2021 to 2023.
Korea moves to raise minimum salary for foreign workers to protect Korean wages
Foreign fishermen work at Daebyeon Port in Busan, March 9. Korea is moving to introduce what would function as a higher minimum wage floor for many foreign workers. Yonhap
By Jung Min-ho
Justice ministry to embed paycheck thresholds into visa, residency permits
Korea is moving to introduce what would function as a higher minimum wage floor for many foreign workers, by writing “reasonable” wage requirements for migrants directly into visa and stay conditions.
Responding to inquiries from The Korea Times about this new immigration policy, revealed earlier this month, the Ministry of Justice said the goal is to protect the wage levels of Koreans by pushing up wage levels for foreign workers in certain visa categories.
“The purpose of setting wage requirements for foreign workers, as in countries such as the United States and Britain, is to prevent declines in Korean workers’ wages and guard against violations of their working conditions,” a ministry official said in a recent statement.
Under the 2030 Immigration Policy Future Strategy, the ministry plans to embed these wage thresholds in immigration rules, so that employers will have to meet or exceed them if they want to hire or keep foreign workers on visas such as E-7-1 or E-7-3.
This comes after President Lee Jae Myung publicly questioned whether a growth model built on low‑paid migrant labor really benefits regional economies during a January meeting with representatives of the shipbuilding industry.
In Ulsan, Lee called it “odd” that Korea boasts world‑class competitiveness while relying on foreigners paid roughly the minimum wage and asked what that did for the local economy when much of their earnings are sent abroad.
The next month, he ordered a review of the wide‑area shipbuilding visas, signaling changes to the system that has long treated cheap foreign labor as the solution to worker shortages.
Under the plan, the ministry will launch an advisory committee, chaired by Justice Minister Jung Sung-ho, to recommend industry‑ and visa‑specific wage floors for foreigners each year. Those requirements are then expected to be inscribed into immigration rules as conditions for issuing and renewing work and stay permits, meaning employers here will have to meet or exceed the new thresholds if they want to keep sponsoring foreign workers.
Current ministry guidelines already set minimum salary levels for E‑7 visas — around 31.1 million won ($21,000) a year for E-7-1 workers, for example. The ministry said the new plan will improve the criteria into a more encompassing and systematic framework.
“Wage requirements do not mean the government is deciding what foreign workers should be paid; they mean setting minimum pay conditions for granting them permission to stay here. Some other countries also set wage criteria as part of residence permits and Korea’s wage requirements for foreign workers are intended to further develop and upgrade that kind of system,” the official said.
Asked whether it could be considered a violation of the International Labour Organization’s rule that prohibits applying different minimum wages to different groups of workers, the official said the policy does not create a separate minimum wage for foreigners but merely sets income thresholds as a condition for issuing visas and residence permits.
The wage push is unfolding alongside a separate ministry review of the regional-specific visa system that allows industrial municipalities like Ulsan to bring in large numbers of foreign shipyard workers. Last week, the ministry launched an advisory group of experts to discuss whether the system should be maintained, scaled back or scrapped.
A senior official at the Korean Metal Workers’ Union, a major industrial labor union, broadly supports the direction of the new policy.
“But unless long‑standing abuses in subcontracting and workplace conditions are addressed, the impact will be limited and I’m skeptical that modest wage hikes alone will be enough to bring experienced Korean skilled workers back into shipyard subcontracting jobs,” he said.