update: since i think that that the visa-problem is very important, i marked it as a seperate category. more details about visa / problems / possibilities in korea will follow soon.
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originally i planned to write about my rafting and diving day with my co-workers, but this will have to wait. there is more important stuff to talk about. ok, take a deep breath, this post will be longer.
as already mentioned, starting to work in korea is not that easy as i thought and if you plan to come here for a longer term, i guess you will need the information i would like to provide you with today. i made a lot of research today and investigated one legal page after another to grab this stuff together, so bookmark it – it is something like 3 hours research i did for you. here we go:
first let us talk about internships in korea. for this i did find this inquiry on the koreas official immigration page:
Subject
An Intern Employment of Foreign Student
Question
I am a person dispatched from the Germany Headquarters, to manage the Korean Branch. I would like to provide an opportunity for foreign youth with various working experiences abroad as interns. In this case, am I able to employ a foreign student for 3 to 6 months as interns?
Reply
The Korean government grants Domestic Employment of professional Manpower who is a Specific technology expert or a Certificate holder. However, non-professional Manpower are restrictively granted to stay in Korea. Therefore, it is not granted to hire a foreign student who is not a professional Manpower as an intern.
so, this explains why most people doing internship here have… guess what? right, a tourist visa. not legal at all but – except the working holiday visa – the only possible way. i wonder why the government doesnt want to have interns here. 3-6 months is not a big deal and why not supporting foreign companies in this? if there is something korea really badly needs, then it is more promotion not only among tourists but also among business partners. still so many people think that hyundai or samsung are japanese companies… so internships are already difficult and like my boss told me, getting a visa for me after graduation will also be difficult if not impossible. therefore i visited the ministry of labor page to find out more details on this. here the result:
Employment Permit System
1. Definition of Employment Permit System for Foreigners
The Employment Permit System allow employers who have failed to hire native workers to legally hire an adequate number of foreign workers and is an system that the government uses to introduce and manage foreign workers in Korea in an organized manner.
- Construct efficient employment management system for foreign workers
- Apply identical labor conditions and human rights as the native workers
- To prevent absurdity, the government selects and invites foreign workers
Most countries, short of manpower due to economy development and aging society, are introducing legal employment of foreign workers.
2. Permitted category of business for foreign workers
Under the Foreign Employment Permit, foreign workers are restricted to be only allowed to work in 5 business industries:
- Manufacturing Industry,
- Construction Industry,
- Agriculture and Stockbreeding (Farm Products Cultivation, Stockbreeding),
- Fishing Industry,
- Service Industry (Refrigerated Warehousing, Restaurants, Business Support Service, Social Welfare, Sewage Disposal, General Repair Services of Motor Vehicles, Nursing, Household Service etc.)
ok ok, fishing and breeding is not my world at all. manufacturing and construction, tooo late to learn this. but hey, service industry sounds great! right? hotel is kind of service, right? wrong. lodging industry is not included. i do not want to go for nursing or sewage disposal so desperately i started to search for possible changes or any kind of hope and then i found this:
Ministry of Labor – Plan for foreign workforce 2008
According to the plan, the total number of workers to be brought in this year is 132,000, of which 60,000 are ethnic Koreans living overseas and 72,000 are other foreigners.
The total figure is up by 23,000 from 109,000 last year, but if 127,000 foreigners to be imported to replace those who will be deported due to the expiry of their sojourn period and illegal stay are excluded, there will be a net increase of just 5,000 workers.
In 2007, about 109,000 workers were introduced under the Employment Permit System. Among them, 49,600 were general foreigners and 60,000 were ethnic Koreans.
This year’s plan was made in consideration of the demand for workers who will come to replace those expected to depart due to the end of their three-year employment period and the current state of labor shortages at industrial sites.
The list of industries in which employers are permitted to employ foreign workers are almost the same as last year, except that the lodging industry is added to the list and that tourist hotels will be allowed to hire foreigners on a pilot basis.
yes! there is hope! something like 1:100.000.000 but there is a chance! so lets see. there is this aim to give 72.000 „real“ foreigners a job in korea and most of them are meant to replace the old ones. since the lodging industry has been newly included in the system, their share is very low and like my boss told me, working experience of at least 6-7 years is necessary. this means, that even if this system should start to change during the next years, i wont be able to get a starting position as well as stay here longer then 3 years without having to fear of getting replaced then…
and yes, you did read this, compared to last year, the net increase is only 5000 workers! what the… i mean, when you talk here with people, almost everybody who is employing staff will tell you that korea urgently needs more foreigners, so how come that there is almost no reaction? and it goes on like this:
However, facility maintenance and management and worker dispatch services, a subcategory of employment services, are removed from the list of industries permitted to employ ethnic Koreans.
i talked with a friend about this, and he said: ok, there is only one solution for this. same like in japan. get married. this will solve all the problems and you will be able to do what you want to do…
great. i guess i should take a more intensive look at other industries, like the „business support service“ and see what possibilities i could get there. i do not want to become a teacher for german or english here (even though the payment is really good) but as you can see, korea is kind of really closed up and if i want to get working experience here from next year on, perhaps there wont be any other chance…
of course, this is the clean, legal way. there are thousands of possibilities to work here and earn good money without a visa and without having all this stress – but this is nothing you can put on your CV and also nothing you can refer later to when applying for other companies.
do you guys believe in fate? i do – somehow – and i know for everything there is a reason. so probably it is my destiny to study more… or go to some other place? stay in germany? hard to say, but lets see how things will develop. this is not what i expected but well… you know, the big masterplan ^^
so the next thing i will try to get more information about will be about possibilities in german companies engaged in korea…
ich gebs zu, beamtendeutsch ist auch nicht gerade ne wonne und da hat sicherlich jeder schon mal was falsch verstanden und es wurde auch sicherlich schon oft schwachsinn geschrieben. aber darauf will ich nicht hinaus. wer meint dass diese antwort mr. robin weitergeholfen hat der ist wohl sehr optimistisch.
i catched a cold.
Ich hoffe mit diesem Blog zu einem breiteren Verständnis über Ostasien beitragen zu können. Ursprünglich diente diese Plattform als Hilfe, um meine als Student in Korea und Japan gesammelten Erfahrungen zu bündeln. Jetzt verschlägt es mich arbeitsbedingt nach China.
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