By Park Si-soo
Staff Reporter
The South Korean government's decision to suspend the issuance of E-9 work visas has quashed the dreams of thousands of Nepali citizens who are seeking jobs here, a Nepali daily reported.
``The dream of thousands of Nepali youth to find lucrative jobs in South Korea was shattered following this decision,'' the Kantipur newspaper said in an online article posted Saturday.
The Ministry of Labor announced last Tuesday that it would stop issuing E-9 visas until February as the number of foreign workers arriving here reached the annual quota of 72,000 for the period between March 2008 and February this year. They are to begin re-issuing the visa in February after setting a new quota, the ministry said.
Kantipur reported that thousands of Nepali youths, who completed all the required procedures including a Korean language test, are anxiously awaiting the resumption.
``All of a sudden, the economic crisis has started to emerge in Korea, resulting in the shutdown of some 22 percent of small companies, and those companies said that they wouldn't be able to employ any more,'' the newspaper quoted Nepali Ambassador to Seoul Kamal Koirala as saying.
Among 13 countries affected by the suspension are Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Kazakhstan.
According to Yonhap News Agency, more than 2,700 Nepalese have signed a contract with Korean firms, but only 60 percent of them succeeded in getting a visa.
Yonhap quoted a local job consulting firm as saying that nearly 5,000 Nepali young men are seeking to land jobs in Korea.
It also reported that dozens of Nepalese staged a rally on Monday in front of an office in the central part of the country that handles the Employment Permit System (EPS) in cooperation with the South Korean government.
The labor ministry said this is the first time that the number of applicants exceeded the quota since the introduction of the EPS in 2004. An official of the ministry pointed out the drastic increase in the number of foreign workers already here who renewed their contracts was the primary reason the quota was filled early.