South Korea needs foreign workers, but often fails to protect them

Samsung phones. Hyundai cars. LG TVs. South Korean exports are available in almost every corner of the world. But the nation is more dependent than ever on imports to keep its factories and farms running: foreign labor.

This shift is part of the fallout from a demographic crisis that has left South Korea with a shrinking and aging population. Data released this week shows that the country broke its own record last year – again – for the lowest total fertility rate in the world.

President Yoon Suk Yeol’s government has responded by more than doubling quotas for low-skilled workers from less developed countries, including Vietnam, Cambodia, Nepal, the Philippines and Bangladesh. Hundreds of thousands of them now toil in South Korea, mostly in small factories, or on remote farms or fishing boats – jobs that locals consider too dirty, dangerous or too low-paid. With little say in choosing or changing employers, many foreign workers face predatory bosses, inhumane housing, discrimination and other forms of abuse.

One of them is Chandra Das Hari Narayan, born in Bangladesh. Last July, while working in a wooded park north of Seoul, he was assigned to cut down a tall tree. Although the law requires him to wear a safety helmet when doing such work, he was not given one. A falling branch hit his head, knocking him unconscious and causing blood to flow from his nose and mouth.

After his bosses refused to call an ambulance, a fellow migrant worker rushed him to a hospital, where doctors found internal bleeding in his head and his skull fractured in three places. His employer reported only minor bruises to authorities, according to a document he filed for workers’ compensation for Mr. Chandra without his approval.

“They wouldn’t have treated me like that if I was South Korean,” says 38-year-old Chandra. “They treat migrant workers as disposable.”

The work can be deadly, foreign workers were too almost three times as likely deaths in work-related accidents compared to the national average, according to a recent study. Such findings have alarmed rights groups and foreign governments; the Philippines in January forbade its citizens from taking seasonal jobs in South Korea.

But South Korea remains an attractive destination, with more than 300,000 low-skilled workers on temporary work visas here. (These figures do not include the tens of thousands of ethnic Korean migrants from China and former Soviet republics, who tend to face less discrimination.) About 430,000 more people have overstayed their visas and are working illegally, according to government data.

Migrant workers often land in places like Pocheon, a city northeast of Seoul where factories and greenhouses rely heavily on foreign labor. Sammer Chhetri, 30, arrived here in 2022 and sends $1,500 of his $1,750 monthly salary to his family in Nepal.

“You can’t make this kind of money in Nepal,” said Mr. Chhetri, who works from dawn to dusk in long, tunnel-shaped plastic greenhouses.

Another Nepalese worker, Hari Shrestha, 33, said his earnings from a South Korean furniture factory helped his family build a house in Nepal.

Then there’s the appeal of South Korean pop culture, globally popular TV dramas and music.

“Every time I call my teenage daughter at home, she always asks, ‘Dad, have you met BTS yet?’” says Asis Kumar Das, 48, originally from Bangladesh.

For nearly three years, Mr. Asis worked 12 hours a day, six days a week, in a small textile factory for a monthly salary of about $2,350, which he did not receive regularly.

“They never paid me on time or in full,” he said, showing an agreement his former employer signed with him promising to pay a portion of his back wages by the end of this month.

Mr. Asis is far from alone. According to government data, migrant workers report $91 million in unpaid wages annually.

The Ministry of Labor said it is making “every effort” to improve the working and living conditions of these workers. It sends inspectors to more workplaces, hires more translators and imposes fines on employers who abuse workers, the report said. Some cities are building public dormitories after local farmers complained that the government was importing foreign workers without adequate housing plans.

The government has also offered “exemplary” worker visas that will allow them to bring their families. Officials have said that South Korea plans to “bring in only those foreigners who are essential to our society” and “strengthen the crackdown on those staying here illegally.”

But authorities – which plan to issue a record 165,000 temporary work visas this year – have also cut back on some services, for example by stopping funding for nine migrant support centres.

In the decades after the Korean War, South Korea exported construction workers to the Middle East and nurses and miners to Germany. As it emerged as an economic powerhouse producing electronics and cars in the early 1990s, it began importing foreign workers to fill jobs shunned by the increasingly wealthy local workforce. But these migrants, classified as ‘industrial trainees’, were not protected by labor law despite their harsh working conditions.

The government introduced the Work permit system, or EPS, in 2004, eliminating middlemen and becoming the sole job broker for low-skilled migrant workers. It recruits workers on three-year visas from 16 countries, and also started offering seasonal work to foreigners in 2015.

But serious problems remain.

“The biggest problem with EPS is that it has created a master-servant relationship between employers and foreign workers,” said Kim Dal-sung, a Methodist minister who heads the Pocheon Migrant Worker Center.

That can mean inhumane conditions. The “housing” promised to Mr Chhetri, the farm worker, turned out to be a used shipping container hidden in a torn greenhouse-like structure covered in black plastic blinds.

During a bitter cold snap in December 2020, Nuon Sokkheng, a Cambodian migrant, died in a heatless hut. The government has introduced new safety regulations, but in Pocheon many workers still live in substandard facilities.

When EPS workers have abusive employers, they often have only two choices: endure the ordeal, hoping their boss will help them renew or renew their visa, or work illegally for someone else and live in constant fear. immigration raidssaid Rev. Kim.

In December 2022, 32-year-old Ray Sree Pallab Kumar lost most of the sight in his right eye after a metal piece thrown by his manager bounced off a steel cutting machine and hit him. But his employers, in southern Seoul, tried to blame him for the accident. According to a Korean-language statement, they tried to get him to sign even though he didn’t understand it.

Migrants also say they face racist or xenophobic attitudes in South Korea.

“They treat people differently based on skin color,” said Mr. Asis, the textile worker. “In the crowded bus they prefer to stand rather than take a seat next to me. I ask myself, ‘Do I smell?’”

Biswas Sree Shonkor, 34, a worker at a plastics factory, said his wages remained the same while his employer gave raises and promoted the South Korean workers he helped train.

Mr Chandra said even worse than the workplace injuries such as those he suffered at the arboretum was the way managers insulted foreign workers, but not locals, over similar mistakes.

“We don’t mind working hard,” he says. “It is not our body, but our mind that gets tired.”