Workers Migration : South Korea a unique example

Amid abusive labour practices all around, South Korea has set a unique model of recruiting foreign workers via state mechanisms that ensure low-cost migration and better benefits and also protect migrants' rights.

The giant East Asian economy enforces a nearly foolproof scheme, Employment Permit System (EPS), in the whole cycle of migration to Korea, returning and reintegration.

The system got the UN Public Service Award in 2011 for its transparency and combating corruption.

Unlike the Gulf and other Southeast Asian labour-hiring countries, hardly anyone pursuing jobs in Korea would require selling properties or borrow at high interest rates to finance their migration.

The total cost of documentation, visa and airfare is Tk 80,000, nearly half of their one month's salary which they usually get in Korea. The country is home to some 15,000 Bangladeshis working mainly in the manufacturing sector.    

“It's a great opportunity for me to be able to work in Korea … all workers under the EPS are equally paid and treated here,” SM Saiful Islam, a Bangladeshi working at a colour-sheet manufacturing company in Hwaseong city, told The Daily Star over phone. 

He said his monthly salary, including overtime, on average is about Tk 1.6 lakh. For many, it goes up to Tk 2 lakh.

“Both my job and my future is secure,” said Saiful, 24, who went to Korea early last year under the EPS.

The shift to EPS in 2003 actually left behind a history of malpractices and labour abuses under its previous system -- Industrial Trainee Scheme (ITS) of 1994, which was meant to train and recruit foreign labour.

Involvement of private actors under the ITS gave birth to a lot of malpractices -- foreign workers were charged high amounts -- as much as $10,000, according to a report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

To recoup the money, migrants changed jobs frequently and overstayed their visas, prompting the Korean authorities to design the EPS. Korea's Ministry of Employment and Labour (MOEL) eventually signed agreements with 16 labour-sending countries.

Bangladesh signed an MoU with the MOEL in 2007. The Human Resources Development Korea (HRD Korea) and Bangladesh Overseas Employment Services Ltd (BOESL), state-owned recruiting agent of Bangladesh, implement the computer-based recruitment.

The recruitment process starts every year with Korea announcing quotas for each country. Based on that, HRD Korea conducts language tests and basic skills test of the aspirant migrants, said Mohammed Shamsul Alam, general manager at the HRD Korea in Bangladesh.

Those getting highest marks in both tests go for medical test. The successful candidates then apply online to the HRD Korea in Dhaka via BOESL.  

Once approved, the applicants' information is put on the rosters managed by the Korean Job Centre. Employers who can prove that they could not find local workers for the posts after advertising in newspapers are eligible to ask the Job Centre for foreign workers, Shamsul Alam said.

If the requirements match, the employers ask the MOEL to hire workers. Upon approval from HRD Korea, they prepare job contracts, which are checked by the MOEL, and then send them to the BOESL in Dhaka online, he added.

The BOESL then calls the aspirant for signing a job contract, after which they attend a six-day training session at the Bangladesh-Korea Technical Centre in Dhaka. Afterwards, the BOESL arranges visas for their travel to Korea. Before joining the job, the migrants are trained for three more days by the trade bodies of the sectors the migrants would work in, according to HRD Korea. 

The employer then can have a contract for one year to four years and 10 months, Shamsul Alam told this correspondent.

“If the worker loses his job for some reason, he can report to the Job Centre. It will find jobs for him in 90 days. Otherwise, he has to return home. However, usually workers get jobs,” he said.

The worker is provided with a shelter and food during these 90 days in case he does not have it.

After four years and 10 months, a worker must return home. However, after three months leave at home, he can go to Korea again for another four years and 10 months. This he can repeat until he is 40, the HRD Korea official said.

“The most important thing about Korea is that the labour law covers both the local and the foreign labour equally,” he added.

The EPS has five mandatory insurances for supporting the migrants in case of job loss, return cost, job end benefits and health benefits.

Workers get two days off a week in addition to one monthly day off, when they can work if they want to. There is no annual leave, but in case of emergency they can take leave without pay for a maximum 90 days.   

According to a 2015 ILO report, three months before the worker's official last day in Korea, the HRD Korea reaches out to the worker and his employer to check that everything is in order.

It has a “Happy Return Programme” to facilitate the long-term employment or business start-up plans of EPS workers upon their return, it said.

The ILO report lauded the EPS for low-cost migration, legal protection, reintegration and so on, but also found some flaws.

It said the EPS has failed to meet the real demand of foreign labour, which was why employers often try to hold on to the employees as long as possible and using any means possible. 

“Sometimes their methods come dangerously close to violating labour standards,” it said.

Also, many of the aspirants had to wait one to two years before departing for Korea, it noted.  

The report also said 21.3 percent of the workers had paid over $2,000 to go to Korea, an amount that is close to double the amount set by the HRD Korea.

Asked about this, Shamsul said initially there might have been some brokers who took advantage of workers' ignorance. But such elements have now been eliminated.

“We are continuously researching and trying to make it flawless,” he said.