Help the students find jobs in Korea and Japan

If the youngsters of Korea and Japan are given an environment to more freely access each other’s labor market, it will certainly inject new vitality to the two country’s economies.

Lee Chang-minThe author is a professor of integrated Japanese studies at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. I was surprised to find eight Japanese students in my undergraduate class this semester. In the past, Chinese students were often the largest populations among international students, but as Hallyu continues to gain traction, students from various countries are increasingly studying in Korea in recent years. In particular, the number of Japanese students has increased. According to my university’s international exchange office, the number of Japanese undergraduate students has surged from 58 two years ago to 146 this year. If you include graduate students and students in language programs, the number is even higher.

Statistics from the Korea Tourism Organization also reflect this trend. In 2023, 13,500 Japanese visited Korea for study and training, the highest number ever. This year, the number already exceeded 12,000 by September and is on track to break the record. By nationality, Chinese students are the largest group followed by Vietnamese and Japanese students among international students in Korea. But Japanese students increase 20 percent every year.

Until now, Korean youngsters have been studying and working in Japan. Since the normalization of Korea-Japan relations in 1965, many young Koreans have gone to Japan to study and some of them have settled there. In the past decade, amid labor shortages in Japan and youth unemployment in Korea, the Korean government has also offered support.

The K-Move project, led by the Human Resources Development Service of Korea in 2013, helped young Koreans find jobs in Japan. In 2018, the labor and foreign ministries of Korea assisted 10,000 young Koreans to work in Japan over five years through the Korea-Japan Matching Project. In recent years, the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency has continued to organize job fairs and capacity-building seminars for Korean youths who want to work in Japan.

Since the late 2000s, Japan has taken measures to encourage foreign students in the country to stay and work after graduation and expand the stay of foreign professionals in certain technical fields in response to its declining labor force. In 2012, Japan introduced a preferential point system for highly skilled human resources to attract qualified foreign talents. As of now, 720,000 highly skilled foreigners are in Japan, comprising over 35 percent of the foreign workforce in the country. Korean youngsters working in Japan are also among this group. While some are returning to Korea due to the low starting salaries of Japanese companies and differences in corporate culture, many Korean youths are still knocking on the doors of the Japanese job market every year.

As of October 2024, the unemployment rate for youths in Korea, aged between 15 and 29, was 5.1 percent, but the “extended unemployment rate” is nearly 24.5 percent. Of the 400,000 people who have given up finding jobs, one out of four is a young adult, indicating that the youth job crisis is extremely serious in Korea.

By 2032, Korea is expected to be in need of 894,000 additional workers. Korea will soon face the same labor shortage Japan is experiencing. Unless Korea reverses its world’s lowest birthrate, it must create a system that actively welcomes foreign professionals like Japan does.

When I ask my Japanese students about their life in Korea, they all love it and want to work and settle here. But reality is tough. Very few Korean companies hire foreign white-collar workers. In contrast, 40 percent of companies in Japan hire international students for white-collar jobs.

It is difficult for foreigners to get the E-7 specified activity visa in Korea — and unless the employers are conglomerates, it’s not easy to hire E-7 visa holders. To offer a job to an E-7 visa holder, a company must pay an annual salary of at least 35.24 million won ($25,247) as of 2023, but the average starting salary of a collage graduate at a mid-size or small company in Korea is only 26 million won to 30 million won.

As Korea and Japan will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the normalization of their diplomatic ties next year, how about creating a special path for youngsters from both countries to more easily access each other’s labor market?

As Korean and Japanese youngsters are mostly white-collar workers with specialized knowledge and skills, there is a relatively low possibility of illegal stay. The two countries’ wage gap is not so big, either. If the youngsters of Korea and Japan are given an environment to more freely access each other’s labor market, it will certainly inject new vitality to the two country’s economies.

Translation by the Korea JoongAng Daily staff.