Workers labour under South Korean crackdown

The South Korean government this month launched a nationwide blitz on 200,000 foreign illegal workers. It is estimated that 15,000 of these workers are Vietnamese, but at least 10,821 qualify to apply for a certificate of labour as they have been in South Korea for less than four years. With this certificate the workers can remain in South Korea. The South Korean government offered the remaining 3,642 illegal Vietnamese workers the chance to return voluntarily before November 15.
Most of the returned workers had broken labour contracts with their Vietnamese employer while working in South Korea, citing pay, working conditions and lifestyle issues as the main reasons for seeking work outside of their contracts.
According to statistics from the Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA), the average monthly salary of a Vietnamese worker in South Korea is between $400-600, but the pay for an outside-contract job can be triple that.
Consequently, many of the workers did not want to return to Vietnam or their first employers. Several married or had children with Koreans so as to have a longer or permanent stay in South Korea. Some Korean bosses and families attempted to help the workers hide from the local authorities.
According to the regulations of MoLISA’s Overseas Labour Management Bureau, workers who break official labour contracts in South Korea will be banned from the country for five years.
Bureau head Nguyen Thanh Hoa said those who did not return on time would be fined 20 million won or sentenced to three years in jail.
A MoLISA official said the ministry had yet to decide what they would do to help the returnees. A recent Vietnam Television show called for families and relatives of the illegal immigrants in South Korea to encourage them to return soon. According to the Vietnamese Embassy in Seoul, there are some 20,000 Vietnamese now working in South Korea, but only 5,000 of them are their under contract.

Back to Vietnam last week after a six-month working stay in Malaysia to supervise his firm’s Vietnamese export workers, Le Sy Giang, an official from the International Manpower Supply Company, welcomed the move.

"The policy of South Korea is quite positive for us as labour exporters," he said. "It gave a boost to our image."

"Like Malaysia, South Korea is an emerging market for Vietnamese labour exports. So cooperation with foreign parties, both at national and at corporate levels, will help ensure the future strength of our labour exports."

According to the Vietnamese Embassy in Seoul, eight Vietnamese companies exported a combined 30,000 workers to South Korea.

South Korea is now considering whether Vietnam should be placed on a the priority list of the 15 labour exporting countries because of the positive way the issue of illegal immigrants has been resolved.

South Korean authorities said next year they would apply a new law on receiving foreign workers to meet the growing demand from local small- and medium-sized companies.

To prevent Korean employers from abusing the crackdown and cutting pay, South Korea’s Ministry of Labour is implementing severe measures to guarantee the workers’ interests.