labour migration

DELEGATE :* NEHA TALWAR

*COLLEGE : *JESUS AND MARY

*COUNTRY :* REPUBLIC OF KOREA

*COMMITTEE :* ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL

*TOPIC :* LABOUR MIGRATION

Globalization has ushered in increasing migration for labor. Rapid economic growth has contributed to the greatest migration in Asia resulting in decrease in the regulation of the labor market, growth in the informal sector, reduced job opportunities for the native country & emergence of a new form of exploitation.

South Korea being a historically a non-immigrant country, has since the
late 1980s been transformed into one of the major destinations for Asian
foreign workers. Over the past few years, the migration of foreign workers due to tightening of the labor market and the consequent wage explosion has become an important issue in the Republic of Korea.

The Immigration law of the Republic of Korea continues to restrict the admission of foreign workers to a few categories. Current immigration law does not allow unskilled foreign labor to enter Korea, except as trainees. With the intensification of labor shortage, the trainee program was clandestinely used as an avenue for accepting unskilled foreign labor. Strict migration controls made it increasingly difficult for South Korean businesses to fill low-level jobs with legal, temporary workers, making more people from other Asian countries to overstay their tourist visas and join the workforce by the mid 1990s.

The government, in June 2002, recognized the need to give worker status to unskilled foreign labor for the first time under the Employment Management Scheme which failed to significantly decrease the number of undocumented workers. The *Act on Foreign Workers' Employment*, 2003 stipulated the introduction of the E*mployment Permit Program *(EPP) for foreigners, aiming not only to eradicate human rights violations, but also to substitute legal foreign workers for undocumented workers.

On July 31, 2003, the National Assembly of Korea passed the *"*Employment
of Foreign Workers Act (EFWA)," which called for an introduction of a "work permit system in which foreign workers are entitled to bonus allowance, retirement pay and the three basic labor rights of unionizing, collective bargaining and collective action. On 31July 2004, new* *act regulating the work permit system of migrant workers was passed, which granted foreign workers rights not only to legal employment but also to join unions, to collective bargaining, and to strike.

Although prosperity has brought higher living standards to South Korea, a number of middle-class South Koreans continue to emigrate to Asian and Anglophone countries in search for a better quality of life for themselves and their children. South Korea is committed to handle the issue of migrant labor, keeping their rights as well as its national interest in mind.