[Insight & Opinion] No Workers Left, Only Foreigners Remain

[Asia Economy] There are no people. The core of the difficulties faced by various regions and sectors ultimately boils down to the issue of people. In the past, the problem was a shortage of people meeting certain conditions such as ability or age, but now people themselves are disappearing. The problems of rural areas and the provinces go without saying, and even metropolitan cities are finding it increasingly difficult to secure manpower. As competition over limited manpower intensifies, labor costs rise, but the level and quality of manpower repeatedly fall short of previous standards.

Manpower shortages have negative effects on industry and the economy in the short term, but in the mid to long term, they cause significant damage to the entire social system, and failure to properly address this can even lead to system collapse. All our systems implicitly assume a pyramid shape where the next generation is larger than the previous one, but the actual reality is becoming an inverted pyramid. As can be felt in the transformation of wedding halls into funeral halls, the explosive increase in the elderly population leads to expanded demand for caregiving and nursing, but the current population structure cannot handle this, and this trend can only worsen.

The solutions to the manpower shortage problem can be summarized internally as increasing birth rates and maximizing the utilization of potential labor forces such as women and the elderly, and externally as the continuous inflow of foreign workers. We have tried to solve this problem through internal efforts so far, but it is clear that we have failed. It is meaningless to analyze the causes of failure; ultimately, the only solution left for us is the continuous inflow of foreigners. Negative opinions about the increase of foreigners remain strong, but these are mere fantasies that disregard reality. The reality is that when elderly people who express negative views about foreigners on the internet are hospitalized, the caregivers beside them are much more likely to be foreigners. Foreigners are both a means to solve the manpower shortage problem and the only hope to prevent population decline and regional extinction. However, the problem is that foreigners also prefer Seoul and the metropolitan area. Better working conditions and higher wages are commonly preferred by both foreigners and natives alike.

To overcome this situation, since 2022, the Ministry of Justice has started a ‘Region-Specialized Visa Pilot Project.’ This concept allows existing foreigners to change their residence status on the premise of staying in depopulating regions for a certain period, enabling stable residence. While the existing system focused on industries, this pilot project is centered on space, marking a significant change. Although it is still small-scale with only a few hundred people annually, actively utilizing it could lead to virtuous cycles such as maintaining regional economic activities and expanding the resident population in local governments.

Expansion to visas linked to region-based industries could also be considered. In the shipbuilding industry, most operations are based in provinces, and related industries tend to be concentrated in adjacent areas. If visa issuance and residence status changes are more boldly allowed for employment in shipbuilding-related sectors and residence within regions such as Yeongam-Mokpo, Geoje-Tongyeong, and Ulsan?where large shipyards and cooperating companies are densely located?this could alleviate severe manpower shortages and help maintain local commercial districts and industrial bases.

Foreigners should not be seen as mere resources to be used when needed and sent away when not, but as members of society who live and build communities together. To maintain South Korea’s current economic level and status, the time has come to break free from the illusion of a homogeneous nation and rapidly achieve a radical change in perception and systems regarding foreigners.

Choi Jun-young, Specialist, Law Firm Yulchon

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