A survey found that 4 out of 10 foreign students residing in South Korea hope to find employment only in Korea, rather than their home country or a third country.
According to the Ministry of Education on 5th, a survey conducted from June to October of the previous year at the 'Foreign Student Job Fair' with a total of 1,207 students showed that 42.5% of respondents said they were interested only in employment in Korea when asked about the country in which they planned to work.
"Korea or their home country" accounted for 45.5%, and "Korea or a third country" was 12.0%. For the question regarding the desired employment area, 55.1% answered "current residence," and 37.2% said "the metropolitan area."
The most desired employment industry was manufacturing and mining at 16.1%, followed by wholesale, retail, accommodation, and food services (10.0%), professional, science, and technical services (9.8%), and public and education services (9.5%).
The nationality of the foreign students who participated in the survey was led by Vietnam (32.6%), followed by Uzbekistan (18.3%), China (13.1%), Mongolia (6.5%), Japan (0.8%), and the United States (0.3%).
In a survey of 98 corporations participating in the job fair, 57% replied that the reason for hiring foreigners was "difficulty in hiring domestic workforce." The percentage citing "to increase talent diversity within the organization" and "to develop new overseas markets" was 22% and 17%, respectively.
Regarding the question of whether there are plans to expand foreign employment in the next five years, 65.3% of companies stated that they "plan to do so."
The Ministry of Education plans to implement support policies to consolidate foreign students who wish to find employment and settle in local areas with local corporations experiencing labor shortages.
It presented a blueprint to strengthen employment information and consulting services provided by the Korea Study Abroad Information System, while supporting employment consolidation through linkage with the "K-Work" platform established by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups.