The Ministry of Employment and Labor has renamed the "Foreign Talent Supply and Demand and Residence Measures" that it has been running since June last year to the "Foreign Talent Support Division" under the International Cooperation Center.
The new department will be run by seven people, including those from the existing foreign labor supply and demand department. The new department will be responsible for analyzing the supply and demand situation of foreign laborers and the acceptance of foreign laborers.
The employment permit system is a system that allows small and medium-sized enterprises that are unable to secure personnel domestically to obtain permission from the government to employ non-specialized foreign personnel.
The background to the establishment of this new specialized department is the labor shortage that small and medium-sized enterprises and individual business owners are facing. Until now, the employment permit system has been used to infringe on jobs for domestic human resources and deny them access to the domestic labor market.
Considering the quantitative impact, the government limited the scope of work to agriculture, livestock, fishing, manufacturing, construction, and some service industries, which Korean workers do not favor. However, the productive population has decreased due to the low birth rate and aging population in recent years.
However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to fill job vacancies due to job mismatches (mismatches in conditions between job seekers and companies). According to employment and labor statistics, the number of job vacancies as of last month was 196,221.
This is a 27.8% increase over three years from 153,492 in March 2021. In response, the Ministry of Employment and Labor has announced that it will set the number of employees to be introduced under the employment permit system this year at a record high.
In addition to expanding the number of employees to 165,000, seven new industries were granted permission: medium-sized companies outside the capital region, delivery services, airport ground handling, restaurants, hotels, condominiums, forestry, and mining.
However, there are still constant suggestions about accepting foreign workers into new industries, and it has been pointed out that the existing Foreign Workers Office does not have enough staff to handle all related tasks, including managing the new workers.
An official from the Ministry of Employment said, "Whenever there is a request for new occupations that are permitted, we will basically consider them all. It is difficult to give specific figures, but in addition to the occupations that were permitted last year,
"We are receiving a lot of requests," he said, adding, "In many cases we have to conduct fact-finding surveys and then consider the matter, so we have established a new specialized department to help us concentrate on our work."
In addition, the Foreign Workers Support Division is responsible for the designation, management and supervision of employment training institutions for foreign workers, strengthening and reorganizing vocational training for foreign workers, and
Guidance and inspection of businesses employing Korean workers, analysis and examination of the labor market relevance of foreign human resources, promotion of voluntary return to the country for eligible foreign workers, and support for the settling of return to the country for foreign workers
The Ministry of Employment plans to first operate the Foreign Workers Division as a temporary autonomous organization, and then consider making it a regular organization.
It is a temporary organization based on a section. It will operate for six months and can be extended for up to one year. After that, it will be regularized through discussions with the Ministry of the Interior and Safety or reorganized through business adjustments.
The official said, "We plan to operate it for six months and then consider whether to extend it."
2024/05/23 07:08 KST
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