Foreign workers nearing 1 million

By Yoon Ja-young

There are nearly 1 million foreigners working in Korea and their wages are rising.

According to the 2016 foreign employment survey released by Statistics Korea, Thursday, there are 1.43 million foreigners aged 15 or over residing in Korea, up 3.7 percent from a year ago.

Among them, 962,000 have jobs. The employment rate of foreigners recorded 67.6 percent, while 4.2 percent were jobless. When considering that the number of the employed totaled 26.5 million, three or four out of 100 workers in Korea are foreigners. The ratio has been rising each year for the past few years.

Economically active foreigners, which combine both the employed and the jobless, surpassed 1 million for the first time.

When asked about salaries, 48.7 percent said they were paid between 1 and 2 million won a month, while 37.9 percent earned between 2 and 3 million won. Those who earn over 3 million won took 8.9 percent. Those earning less than 2 million won totaled 53 percent, down from 58 percent last year. Those earning over 2 million won, meanwhile, rose to 47 percent from 42 percent.

Among foreigners working in Korea, 66.3 percent were male.

By nationality, ethnic Korean Chinese citizens recorded 441,000, or 45.9 percent of the total. Vietnamese followed by accounting for 7.4 percent and Chinese non-Koreans 6.6 percent. Those from countries in North America totaled 45,000, or 4.7 percent. The number of North Americans working in Korea dipped by 14 percent from a year ago, while the Vietnamese population decreased by 5.5 percent.

By age group, those in their 30s took up 29.2 percent of foreign workers, followed by those in their 20s or younger at 26.6 percent. Those in their 40s took 19.5 percent, and those in their 50s 18 percent.

Those residing in Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi Province took 64.9 percent. When asked about education level, 27.3 percent said they have college diplomas while 41.5 percent said they graduated high school.

By industry sector, 437,000, or 45.4 percent of foreigners working in Korea, were in the mining or manufacturing sector. Those working in retail and wholesale, restaurants and lodging totaled 190,000, taking 19.7 percent.

Those who have permanent jobs took 60 percent, while 35.6 percent had temporary or daily jobs. The jobless rate among foreigners recorded 4.2 percent, down 0.7 percentage points from the previous year. When asked how they landed a job, 41.7 percent said they got it through relatives, friends or colleagues, while 32 percent said they resort to the media.

When asked whether they want to continue their stay in Korea after expiration of their visa, 86.1 percent said “yes” while 13.9 percent said they will leave. While the ratio of those wishing to stay recorded over 90 percent among those who have work visas or are ethnic Koreans, the ratio was relatively low at 72.7 percent among professionals.

Among foreign students, 55.1 percent said they plan to stay in Korea after graduation, while 44.9 percent said they will leave. Among those planning to stay, 58.7 percent said they plan to get a job here while 39.8 percent said they plan to advance their educations.