| Foreign nationals work on a farm in Yecheon, North Gyeongsang Province, in this Dec. 3, 2020 photo. Korea Times photo by Lee Yong-ho |
By Lee Hae-rin
Afghan evacuees who came to Korea in August to escape from the Taliban regime in their homeland will be allowed to work as seasonal workers in the agriculture and fishery sectors, the government said Tuesday.
The Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs announced a set of measures to ease regulations on foreign worker recruitment for seasonal work to relieve the manpower shortage in these sectors.
Since 2017, the ministries have accepted seasonal migrant workers on short-term C-4 visas, as agricultural and fishing farms have suffered from labor shortages due to the aging population. Workers with this visa could work for up to five months here during the harvesting season. But the farms have had difficulty hiring foreign workers since last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As a temporary measure, since February this year, the government has allowed foreign nationals here without work visas to work as seasonal employees. They included those holding F-1 family visiting visas and those who had overstayed their visas, who were unable to return to their homelands due to the prolonged pandemic. About 1,470 such people have been afforded work through the temporary measure, according to the ministries.
While the stopgap measure was initially due to end in March of next year, the government decided to make it permanent.
Also from Jan. 1, those able to do seasonal work will be expanded to include international students here, those with D-1 arts and culture sector visas, and those seeking job opportunities with D-10 visas. Ethnic Koreans with H-2 visas, whose maximum work period of 10 months has finished, but who have been staying here after agreeing not to get a fulltime job, will also be allowed to become seasonal workers.
Also, Afghans who entered Korea and were granted the status of “special contributors” for their activities helping the Korean government in Afghanistan, will be allowed to work seasonally.
Foreign students who do seasonal work for over 60 days will receive additional points on their applications for D-10 job seeking visas.
The government will create a new visa, the E-7-5, to be given to skilled workers in the farming and fishing sectors and grant it to E-8 seasonal work visa holders who work here for five years. It will also seek to introduce an immigration visa if the E-7-5 visa holders meet specific conditions, such as a certain level of income, and want to live in farming and fishing villages in rural areas.