80% of foreign workers in S. Korea have jobs at small firms

The number of foreign nationals having jobs in South Korea reached an all-time high of nearly 1 million this year, and nearly 80 percent of them were affiliated with companies with fewer than 50 workers, data showed Sunday.

The number of foreigners aged 15 and older residing in the country came to 1.43 million as of May, and 923,000 of them had jobs here, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea.

Both figures marked about a 10 percent on-year increase to hit a record high, the data showed.

Of the foreign laborers, 78.8 percent worked at companies with fewer than 50 employees each, followed by 18.1 percent working at companies with their respective worker sizes coming to between 50 and 299.

A mere 3 percent had a job at large companies, those with more than 300 employees, the data showed.

The labor picture has little changed over the past decade, as 79.1 percent of foreign residents here worked at small companies in 2012, and the proportion of those affiliated with big companies came to 3.4 percent.

The agency began compiling the relevant data in 2012.

Some 63.5 percent of the foreign workers subscribed to employment insurance in 2023, compared with 77 percent among all wage workers in South Korea.

By nationality, 35.3 percent, or the largest share, were ethnic Koreans with Chinese nationality, followed by the Vietnamese with 11.3 percent and the Chinese with 4.9 percent.

Around 33 percent of all foreigners here earned a monthly income between 2 million won (US$1,535) and 3 million won, with 24.4 percent making more than 3 million won, the data showed. (Yonhap)

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