Foreign workers to ease child care burden for Seoul households

A total of 100 foreigners will be dispatched to households in Seoul as migrant domestic workers in December, part of the government’s initiative to ease the child care burden for parents and boost the country’s tumbling birthrate.

A protagonist involved in domestic chores and taking care of her child in the 2019 film ″Kim Ji Young: Born 1982.″ [LOTTE ENTERTAINMENT]

A total of 100 foreigners will work within households in Seoul as migrant domestic workers in December, part of the government’s initiative to ease the child care burden for parents and boost the country’s tumbling birthrate.

The Ministry of Employment and Labor announced on Friday a set of guidelines for the government-led pilot program to introduce migrant domestic workers from Southeast Asia to Korea. They will be recruited based on their career experience, knowledge and language skills, alongside an inspection of their criminal records and background checks. They must be over 23 and will be allowed to enter the country through an E-9 non-professional employment visa.

Workers will come from 16 countries in Southeast Asia, with workers from the Philippines being considered as the top candidates for the positions.

The Labor Ministry said that double-income households between their 20s and 40s, single parents, and households with multiple children are target priorities for the pilot program, as there is higher demand for more affordable child care services from such families.

Foreign workers will be distributed through agencies certified under the Labor Ministry and their hourly minimum wage will be set at a lower bar than the current wage of 15,000 won to reduce the financial burden for parents.

Although it is the early stage of a pilot program which has an altruistic purpose, there are strong voices of pros and cons over the new foreign workforces.

Voices against the matter state that Korea will likely face difficult hurdles from the system which was benchmarked by Singapore and Hong Kong.

Both countries have allowed foreigners to work as domestic helpers since the 1970s to increase female workforce participation. However, both countries faced lower cultural barriers because their official language was English, and the monthly wage given to foreign workers was exceptionally cheap, between 380,000 won ($288) and 760,000 won — in line with their governments’ aims to bring in much cheaper workforces.

In the case of Korea, parents may be hesitant to hand over their children to foreigners who come from different cultural backgrounds and may have difficulty communicating. Another question mark remains on how affordable these workers are, as they would have to give more than 2 million won to workers who work for eight hours, five days a week under the Minimum Wage Act.

Thirty-five non-governmental organizations who oppose the pilot program gathered in front of the Labor Ministry’s office in Jung District, central Seoul, on Aug. 28, arguing “hasty implementation of the program escalates worries about exploitation of foreign labor and undervaluation of domestic care services,” while failing to reap productive results in raising the national birthrate.

Based on 2021 data, the fertility rate for Hong Kong and Singapore is at 0.75 and 1.02, which some experts point to as evidence for failing to uplift the figure.

Meanwhile, others argue that the urgency of the drooping birthrate and escalating demands for child-rearing services provide validation for the rush.

The number of domestic workers — those involved in housekeeping and child-rearing services — is steadily falling, shrinking some 27 percent over three years to 114,000 in 2022. More than 92 percent of the proportion is dominated by those over their 50s.

Lee Bong-jae, the chief operating officer of house cleaning service Daerijubu, said at an open forum hosted by the Labor Ministry in July that “there are more demands for housekeeping services as the number of double income households increases but the number of workers are dwindling, while their average age is on the rise.”

The Labor Ministry also announced plans to expand the number of foreign workers across multiple industry sectors. The total quota for working visas expanded to 120,000 from last year’s 110,000. Mid-sized enterprises, delivery jobs and ground handling jobs at airports are able to hire foreigners under the E-9 visa. The quota for E-7-4 visas, reserved for skilled professionals, expanded to 35,000 from last year’s 5,000.

BY YI WOO-LIM [lee.jaelim@joongang.co.kr]