A Study on Foreign Worker Acceptance Policy of Korea:Focusing on Shipbuilding

Abstract

　　This paper considers whether the employment opportunities of Korean workers were reduced because of the acceptance of foreign workers at the time when business conditions in the shipbuilding industry began to deteriorate in 2015.　An examination of the situation clarified three points.

　　First, it is not possible to confirm that the number of Korean workers decreased significantly in the shipbuilding industry.　The recession in this industry deepened from 2015 to 2017.　During this time, the number of workers employed by shipbuilding companies fell by 53.9%.　The rate of decline in the number of foreign workers was 48.8%, while the rate for Korean workers was 54.3%.　The number of foreign workers also decreased significantly.　Moreover, there was no movement by shipbuilding companies that the number of Korean workers decreased greatly compared to foreign workers.

　　Second, during a survey conducted in shipyards, there was no mention of decreased employment opportunities for Korean workers due to competition between foreign and Korean workers at the time when the shipbuilding industry fell into recession.　According to the survey, 58% of all foreign workers working in shipyards were working in jobs that Korean workers avoid.　In addition, 25.4% of all foreign workers in the shipyards were easily controlled by government employment authorities.　In other words, more than 80% of the foreign workers were unlikely to compete with Korean workers in the shipyards that were surveyed.

　　Third, most foreign workers who left the shipbuilding industry also left the region in which the shipyard was located.　They moved to manufacturing industries other than the shipbuilding industry in different regions when seeing at the basic municipality level.

　　Taking these factors into account, the shipbuilding industry fell into recession after 2015, but it is not possible to confirm that Korean workers’ employment opportunities decreased because of competition between foreign and Korean workers.　In addition to the three points that have been mentioned, South Korea’s policy of accepting foreign workers is complementary to both foreign and Korean workers because foreign workers engage in tasks that Koreans avoid.

JEL Classification:J61