Highly skilled foreign workers call for eased visa rules, ID system overhaul

Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Lee Chang-yang, fourth from left, poses with foreign professionals at the Korea Press Center, Wednesday. Yonhap

By Lee Kyung-min

Foreign employees of local chip, automotive and telecommunication titans called on the government to ease visa extension and mortgage policies, according to the industry ministry, Wednesday.

They said the government should establish a recruitment website to help highly skilled foreign workers access timely job information, and revise social benefit programs to better represent the interests of hard-working, tax-paying non-Koreans. Also needed is revision of the ID verification system whereby non-Korean names are too long to be entered in their entirety.

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said employees of Samsung Electronics, SK hynix, Hyundai Motor and SK Telecom as well as grad students at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and Ulsan National Institute of Science & Technology (UNIST) attended a discussion organized to share difficulties experienced by non-Korean industry experts seeking long-term or permanent settlement in Korea.

The attendees said the current visa stay period ― one year for E-7 holders ― should be extended and simplified.

They said they are required to prepare the same paperwork every year for the same application, a rather unnecessary and time-consuming process, according to the ministry.

Taking out a mortgage is a major headache for them, especially when compared to living in university dormitories.

Applying for dormitories provided by universities or employers is no problem, but buying a home is too expensive and taking out a jeonse loan is extremely complicated, according to the participants as cited by the ministry. Jeonse is a home renting system unique to Korea whereby tenants pay a refundable lump-sum deposit to a landlord instead of monthly rent.

They said a growing number of foreigners are finding it even difficult to take out jeonse loans nowadays, as nationwide jeonse fraud scandals over the past few months led to suicides of a number of young victims, resulting in tightened rules on borrowing and returning jeonse deposits.

The foreign workers said they sometimes felt alienated from the country's social benefit programs which almost always exclude foreigners, even though they pay taxes.

They recommended the establishment of a website and a job center providing information about local firms and their hiring needs, since most foreign students do not have access to up-to-date, accurate information.

Many said the country's Korean name-based ID verification system needs an update to support long foreign names.

Chief among reasons they chose Korea to study and seek job opportunities were access to global top high-tech players in the chip, automotive, digital and science industries as well as research institutes.

They said Korean colleges do not discriminate against foreigners at their place of work, schools and research labs and that they were given a chance to engage in the same work and research as Koreans do, evaluated on the same criteria.

Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Lee Chang-yang said the government will provide assistance to meet the said needs of the foreign employees.

“The government will outline measures to better accommodate foreign workers with expertise, and make Korea a global hub for excellent foreign workers,” he said.