Temporary Low-skilled Migrant Worker Program in Korea: Employment Permit Scheme

Abstract

In Korea low-skilled migrant workers increased drastically entering the 1990s. In 2003 ‘Employment Permit Scheme (EPS)’ was introduced as social consensus formed that there should be legal channels to employ low-skilled migrant workers while providing proper treatment for them. In 2007 ‘Training-Working Scheme’ under which migrant workers were treated trainees, not workers, was folded into the EPS. Different set of policies have been implemented for overseas Koreans reflecting the experiences of 36 years of Japanese colonial rule. Through implementing EPS, the government mainly aims to prevent corruption that might occur in the admission process of migrant workers and establish the employment order for migrant workers by suppressing undocumented stay and illegal employment. EPS has made a remarkable process in terms of achieving transparency and eradicating the corruption in the admission process. The number of undocumented migrants including low-skilled migrant workers reached its peak in 2002 at 289,239 then declined to 179,846 in March 2013. Among those, who entered Korea through EPS and ‘Working Visit Scheme’ accounts for 24.1% and 2.5% respectively. Even though the number of undocumented migrant workers has significantly reduced after the implementation of EPS, they are still a big part of migrant workers who are in the dead zone of labor rights and human rights. However, Korea’s temporary low-skilled migrant worker program, EPS cannot be free from the criticism that it is a mere short-term manpower supply policy lacking comprehensive consideration of how to embrace low-skilled migrant workers as a migration policy or as a countermeasure to population changes.