As the share of foreign workers at domestic construction sites nears about 20%, calls are growing to strengthen safety management systems as industrial accidents rise alongside it.
According to the "2024 new retirement mutual aid enrollees" data that the Construction Workers Mutual Aid Association (CW) released last year on the 11th, of the total 389,345 workers in 2024, foreign workers numbered 76,589, accounting for 19.7% of the total, it was found.
The retirement mutual aid program is structured so that an amount equivalent to the days worked is accrued as severance pay for construction workers, and it was introduced to guarantee the rights of workers such as short-term contract or day laborers employed for less than a year who have difficulty receiving statutory severance benefits.
In effect, one out of five workers at domestic construction sites is a foreign national, and the share of foreign workers is rising each year. ▲From 12.4% in 2020 to ▲12.5% in 2021 and ▲13.5% in 2022, it edged up, then ▲17.5% in 2023 and ▲19.7% in 2024, approaching about 20%.
Industry officials said the share of foreign labor at construction sites is growing, but improvements in safety awareness to prevent accidents are not being made. As the share of foreign workers rises, the number of foreign victims of industrial accidents is also increasing.
According to the "status of industrial accidents among foreign workers by type of accident" that Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Kang Deuk-gu released in September last year based on data from the Ministry of Employment and Labor (MOEL), the number of foreign industrial accident victims in construction rose from ▲2,566 in 2020 to ▲3,402 in 2024, an increase of about 32% over four years.
Industry officials cited "lack of communication skills" and "insufficient compliance with safety rules" as major causes of industrial accidents involving foreign workers. Despite construction sites having far more hazards than manufacturing, critics note that the Korean-language requirement for foreign construction workers under the employment permit system is lower than for manufacturing.
A representative at a large domestic construction company said, "Foreign workers mostly enter simply aiming for high wages, so in most cases they focus only on productivity," adding, "There are many cases where they are lax about wearing protective gear or following safety rules."
Some say the Korean-language test standards should be tightened even before foreign workers enter the country, making it mandatory to ensure at least minimum communication for construction site safety.
Park Gwang-bae, a senior research fellow at the Construction Policy Research Institute, said, "Safety education should be mandated so they can learn the safety rules and safety signs that must be observed at domestic construction sites before entry," adding, "We should also consider providing incentives such as wage support to participating employers by strengthening practical, on-the-job training using facilities for accident simulations based on Virtual Reality (VR)."