Restaurants serving foreign food permitted to hire E-9 visa holders from August

The hiring of E-9 visa holders in restaurants will be expanded to foreign eateries in August, but the restrictions on tasks remain in place.

A passerby walks behind a restaurant menu in Jung District, central Seoul [NEWS1]

Restaurants serving non-Korean food will be allowed to hire foreign workers on an E-9 visa for nonprofessional workers from overseas starting in August.

Presently, the E-9 visa for migrant workers at restaurants is subject to very tight restrictions since a new visa policy was announced last November. According to the announcement, the visa was only open to restaurants serving Korean food, limited to 100 major cities and towns. Such tight restrictions resulted in an extremely low number of applications at around 80, with restaurant owners saying that the “tough requirements” and low awareness of the policy change were discouraging, according to a survey conducted by the government.

The latest changes, announced by the Foreign Worker Policy Committee under the Ministry of Employment and Labor on Friday, eased the restrictions.

However, restaurants falling in the government’s category of “simple foods,” such as hamburger, pizza and fried chicken franchises, will be excluded as they have a lighter workload, according to the government.

The government will also provide additional training for employers to prevent illegal stays of workers, delayed payment of wages and industrial accidents. Support for migrant workers in finding residences is also planned.

According to restaurant owners, however, the new requirements still appear to be restrictive as the visa still limits the role of applicants to “supporting the kitchen,” such as washing dishes or cleaning tables. They are not allowed to serve the customers directly due to the "language barrier," according to the government.

“You can’t strictly limit the things you can and can’t do in a restaurant, you are bound to receive food orders after cleaning dishes or clean the table after serving food,” The Korea Federation of Micro Enterprises told the JoongAng Ilbo, an affiliate of the Korea JoongAng Daily.

The Federation of Korean Trade Unions also called the government’s new plan unrealistic.

“The fundamental reason for such a lack of manpower comes down to poor working conditions, including low wages and high work hours,” the federation said in a statement Friday.

The federation also pointed out that the committee lacks any representatives of labor.

“Such policy only degrades the quality of the entire labor market.”

BY NA SANG-HYEON, CHO YONG-JUN [cho.yongjun1@joongang.co.kr]