[2020 National Audit] "Overseas Skilled Workforce Attraction Performance Down to One-Quarter in 5 Years"

Joo-Hwan Lee KOTRA Audit Data... "Must Actively Recruit Talent"

[Asia Economy Reporter Moon Chaeseok] Concerns have been raised that South Korea's human resource competitiveness may weaken as the outflow of domestic talent overseas increases while the attraction of overseas professionals to the country remains low.

According to data on the 'Overseas Professional Talent Attraction Support Project' submitted to Lee Juhwan, a member of the National Assembly's Industry, Trade, Energy, Small and Medium Enterprises Committee from the People Power Party, by KOTRA on the 13th, the number of overseas professionals attracted until last month was 153, which is one-quarter of the 615 in 2016.

The Overseas Professional Talent Attraction Support Project is conducted annually by KOTRA to enhance South Korea's competitiveness by discovering global professional and technical talent that is difficult to secure domestically and attracting them to domestic companies, universities, and research institutions.

The annual attraction results have shown a decreasing trend from 615 in 2016 to 483 in 2017, 362 in 2018, 316 in 2019, and 153 up to September this year.

In particular, the attraction results of overseas professionals to universities and research institutes over the past two years have been only eight, indicating a lack of effort in securing human resources in the research and development (R&D) field.

On the other hand, the outflow of core domestic science and engineering personnel overseas has significantly increased in recent years.

According to a survey conducted by the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Planning and Evaluation, the number of science and engineering workers with a college degree or higher employed overseas was 39,853 in 2017, about 67% higher than 23,879 in 2015.

Conversely, the number of foreign science and engineering professionals employed domestically decreased by about 7%, from 4,944 in 2014 to 4,596 in 2018.

The Korea Economic Research Institute recently forecasted in its report titled 'Status and Prospects of Workforce Competitiveness in the Fourth Industrial Revolution among Major Countries' that South Korea's shortage rate of workforce related to the Fourth Industrial Revolution is about 29% as of this year.

It also predicted that even five years from now, South Korea's workforce competitiveness will remain the lowest among major countries.

Assemblyman Lee said, "While countries like China are striving to attract high-level talent and the outflow of talent is accelerating, we are losing even the talent we currently have," adding, "Since this is linked to the competitiveness of the nation and companies, we must actively engage in talent acquisition and utilize them appropriately."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.