The Comparative Study on the Occupational Injury Rate and Mortality Rate of the Total Workers and Foreign Workers

Abstract

The objective of this study is to compare on the occupational injury rate and mortality rate of all workers and foreign workers. By doing so, this study seeks to find out the improvements necessary to secure the basic safety net for foreign workers, as well as to find out the legal and institutional measures in place to make timely political intervention and protect the health of foreign workers. The status of foreign workers in Korea, their employment trends by industries, and occupational accident types and scales of Korean and foreign workers were analyzed from 2005 to 2009. Each year, foreign workers' occupational injury rate was much lower than Korea's overall occupational injury rate. But when analyzed by industry, occupational injury rate (death rate per 10,000 workers) of manufacturing industry was about 2 to 5 times higher than the overall occupational injury rate in Korea. Also, construction industry showed 3 to 16 times higher rate than the rate of overall industries. Although the death rate per 10,000 workers showed a declining yearly trend, foreign workers' occupational injury rate has the tendency to increase gradually. In particular, occupational injury rates and death rates per 10,000 workers were considerably high in the manufacturing and construction industries.