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Employment Permit System

Definition

The Employment Permit System allows employers who have failed to hire native workers to legally hire an
adequate number of foreign workers and is an system that the government introduced to manage foreign workers in Korea in an organized manner.
  • With an introduction of the Employment Permit System, small and medium businesses are able to minimize labor shortage and foreign workers will enjoy basic rights under labor relations laws fully applied to them.

Main elements

Deciding industries and size of inflow of foreign workers
  • The industries subject to and size of inflow of foreign workers and sending country under the Employment Permit System,
    and etc, are to be deliberated and decided in the latter half of the year at the Foreign Workforce Policy Committee
    (FWPC, Chairman: the Minister of the Office for Government Policy Coordination) and adjusted every year.
  • The concerned industries would be mostly manufacturing, construction, and service business where it is difficult to attract
    enough native workers, and particularly small and medium business with less than 300 workers suffering from severe
    labor shortages.
  • The size of the inflow of foreign workers will be determined at an adequate level, taking into account the trends in the
    supply&demand. To avoid having employers relying too much on foreign workers, ceilings will be set for each workplace.
  • Sending countries will be selected by the FWPC based on the rate of illegally staying workers, preference by employers,
    etc and MOU will be signed first with countries that accept all the requirements of Korea such as infrastructure of workers
    to be sent, fair selection, and post-management capability, etc.
    - Designation of sending countries for the Employment Permit System will proceed, independently of those of the current
      Industrial Trainee System.
    - The sending countries for the Employment Permit System are going to be restricted to an appropriate number.

* Every year, rate of illegally staying foreign workers, preference by employers, irregularities in regard to sending or
   receiving foreign workers will be taken into considerations to adjust the quotas for each countries and if a certain level is
   crossed, the designation of sending country can be cancelled.


Selection of Sending country and introduction of foreign workers
  • The sending countries designated by the FWPC and the Korean government (Ministry of Employment and Labor) sign MOU on sending
    workers to the Republic of Korea under the EPS.
    - Selection and introduction of foreign job-seekers are to be done by public organizations of both Korea and sending
      countries.Private sending agencies are not allowed to intervene.
    - For Korea, job-searching and employment management for foreign workers will be conducted by the Job
    Centers of MOEL, and bringing foreign workers to Korea will be the responsibility of the Human
      Resources Development Service of Korea(HRDKorea).

    * For the Industrial Trainee System, private sending agencies performed recruiting and selecting industrial trainees,
       which is leading to problems such as irregularities in sending and receiving foreign workers which served as causes
       for workers' leaving their workplace arranged.

  • Government and public organizations of sending countries shall make a list of foreign job-seekers three to five folds of the
    quota for the Employment Permit System in accordance with criteria such as educational background,
    and EPS-TOPIK stated in the MOU and send it to the public organization of Korea(HRDKorea).
  • For employers that have made efforts but failed to hire native workers for seven days through the Job Center
    of MOEL, hiring foreign workers will be permissible.
    - Korean employers having been acknowledged to have labor shortage may select right persons from the list of foreign
    workers at the Job Center and sign a standard labor contract with them.
Key details of MOU (proposal)
Employment Management of Foreign Workers
  • Working period is set at maximum three years to prevent settlement of foreign workers in Korea, and employers and
    foreign workers are to decide every year whether to renew the labor contract.
    - Foreigners who left Korea after having worked in Korea under the Employment Permit System can not be employed
      again under the same System unless they have stayed outside of Korea for more Six months.

    * Considering the short working period, is (3 years) under the Employment Permit System, accompanying family is
       banned.

  • Employers and foreign workers shall sign a labor contract using the standard labor contract to clarify the working
    conditions such as the wage and job occupation.
  • Foreign workers are supposed to work at the workplace where they signed labor contract for the first time.
    - But, in the case of inevitable circumstances such as close-down or suspension of business, legitimate withdrawal from
      the labor contract, workers can be replaced to other businesses through the Employment support Center.
    - Employers shall subscribe to a "departure guarantee insurance" with a view to ensure a severance pay for foreign
      workers who leave Korea after having worked faithfully, and foreign workers shall subscribe to a "return cost insurance"
      in order to finance the costs for returning home .

Protection of rights according to Korean law
  • Foreign workers under the Employment Permit System shall have the status of worker from the beginning and have their
    basic rights protected equally as Koreans for the three working years according to labor relations laws such as the Labor
    Standards Act.
    - It is possible to differentiate the wage level if it is due to gaps in productivity or experiences between Korean and foreign
       workers, but it is impossible to unfairly discriminate against foreign workers just because they are not Korean.
  • The Ministry of Employment and Labor will step up to monitor businesses that hire foreign workers to prevent industrial accidents,
    overdue wage, and etc.

Measures to prevent illegal stay of foreign workers after the introduction of the Employment Permit
System
  • The introduction of the Employment Permit System for Foreigners lays an institutional grid that enables foreign workers
    to work legally in Korea. Accordingly, continuous and adamant crack-down and stricter punishment will be reinforced
    against illegal workers and their employers.

Selection Procedure

Selection Procedure image Flow Chart of the Employment Permit System
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