Foreign Workers for Our Factory, Entry Date Can Be Known

Current System Does Not Provide Employers with Foreign Workers' Entry Dates
Ombudsman Persuades Ministry of Employment and Ministry of Justice... Information Sharing for System Improvement

Employers will be able to check the expected arrival date of foreign workers who have signed labor contracts through the 'Employment Permit System (EPS)'. Until now, even if a labor contract was signed, employers could not know the arrival date of the worker, causing inconvenience in planning workforce management.

The Small and Medium Business Ombudsman (Vice Minister-level Park Joobong) announced on the 20th that this institutional improvement was made in consultation with the Ministry of Employment and Labor and the Ministry of Justice. Currently, employers who want to hire foreign workers must go through six major steps via EPS: domestic recruitment, application and issuance of employment permits, signing labor contracts, application and issuance of visa issuance certificates, visa issuance, and entry.

Jubong Park, Small and Medium Business Ombudsman. / Photo by Dongju Yoon doso7@

The problem was that employers could not know the expected arrival date of foreign workers. Because of this, employers faced difficulties in setting specific production schedules or work assignments even after signing labor contracts, and also had trouble preparing accommodations for the foreign workers in advance. Therefore, the Ombudsman proposed linking visa issuance information between the Ministry of Employment and Labor’s EPS and the Ministry of Justice’s 'Visa Portal' to provide users with the expected arrival date information of foreign workers.

However, the Ministry of Justice took a cautious stance citing reasons such as personal information protection. The Ombudsman made efforts to persuade for about two months based on the review opinion obtained by inquiring the Personal Information Protection Commission, and on the 30th of last month, the Ministry of Justice responded that it would accept the information linkage. The Ministry of Justice replied to the Ombudsman, "We will link information regarding visa issuance status, application date, and approval date to EPS after obtaining the consent of the information subject," and stated that it would start working consultations with the Ministry of Employment and Labor for this purpose.

Once the information linkage between the two ministries is established, the difficulties faced by small and medium-sized business owners who were frustrated by not knowing the arrival date of foreign workers who signed labor contracts are expected to be resolved. Additionally, by removing information silos between ministries, the entry period for foreign workers could be shortened by as much as 10 days.

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