Korean Immigration Law’s 20% Rule Challenged

Increased direct foreign investment to Korea is, facially, Park Gun Hye’s Administration’s top priority. However, according to the Korea Herald, it seems like the Korean bureaucracy is not following the Park Administration.

The Korea Herald reported that foreign companies have increased complainants about the current Korean immigration law as exemplified in at a government-organized forum in Seoul last week.   The complaints have come, in part, because “[u]nder Korean immigration regulations, companies are allowed to employ a workforce with up to 20 percent of their employees being foreign semi-professionals or skilled laborers on an E-7 visa.”
Some participants argued that under the current regulations, foreign companies have to employee more local workers in order to increase their foreign workforce, which “adds to the financial pressure to many small and medium-sized foreign companies.”
We see this and other issues with Immigration that we have seen, first hand, is causing many foreign companies to consider other jurisdictions for businesses.  
The full Korea Herald article may be found at: Foreign Firms Call for Higher Expat Employment Quota.
What do you think?

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Sean Hayes may be contacted at: [email protected]  Sean Hayes is co-chair of the Korea Practice Team at IPG Legal.

He is the first non-Korean attorney to have worked for the Korean court system (Constitutional Court of Korea) and one of the first non-Koreans to be a regular member of a Korean law faculty. He is ranked, for Korea, as one of only two non-Korean attorneys as a Top Attorney by AsiaLaw.

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