This week, Uzbek Minister of Employment and Poverty Discount Behzod Musaev was in Seoul for a sequence of conferences that underscored a deepening of labor relations between the 2 nations. Bahzod met together with his counterpart, Korean Minister of Labor and Employment Lee Jung-sik, on Could 7. On Telegram, the Uzbek ministry famous a deliberate growth of sectors by which Uzbek residents might be eligible for work.
Uzbekistan is among the many 16 nations eligible for South Korea’s E-9 “Non-Skilled Employment” visa. In April, the South Korea authorities began accepting purposes from enterprise house owners working within the restaurant, hospitality, forestry, and mining sectors to rent overseas employees below the E-9 scheme. Because the Korean Herald famous, “Beforehand, E-9 visa holders may solely work within the agriculture, fisheries, manufacturing, and development sectors.”
E-9 visas will be issued to residents of Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.
The overall variety of visas issued below this system has grown significantly since President Yoon Suk-yeol took workplace. In 2023, the South Korean authorities capped E-9 visas at 110,000 – the most important quota because the visa’s introduction in 2004. In earlier years it was usually within the 50,000-60,000 vary. Within the latter a part of 2023, media experiences advised that the quota would bounce to 165,000 for 2024, together with the growth of eligible companies.
There are additionally different visa classes that Uzbeks could also be eligible for, such because the E-7 “Overseas Nationwide of Particular Skill” visa.
Musaev additionally met with the chairman of the Automotive Trade Affiliation of the Republic of Korea Kwak Younger-cheol, who stated the trade wants round 3,000 further employees yearly (these look like E-7 expert employee positions). Though no particular settlement was introduced, the Uzbek ministry said in its Telegram channel: “The Koreans stated that there’s a demand for 3,000 extra employees per 12 months on this trade, they usually wish to cooperate with Uzbekistan on this regard.”
Earlier this 12 months, Uzbek media reported that Tashkent “plans to ship 100,000 Uzbek residents to work in South Korea,” linking to a Telegram submit on the Minister of Employment and Poverty Discount’s channel that really states that 100,000 Uzbek residents will have the ability to enter aggressive processes for E-9 visa jobs, particularly within the areas of agriculture, hospitality, and development.
On February 16, the ministry’s Company for Exterior Labor Migration put out a discover urging Uzbek residents staying illegally in South Korea to go away earlier than February 29, saying those that voluntarily departed, following the suitable process, wouldn’t be deported and would retain eligibility to return to South Korea. It’s unclear what number of took benefit of that opening.
South Korea has one of many world’s lowest whole fertility charges at 0.9 births per lady and a shortly growing old inhabitants. In line with the United Nations Inhabitants Fund, in 2024 19 % of the South Korea inhabitants is over the age of 65. Solely 8 % of Uzbekistan’s inhabitants is. Uzbekistan additionally has a powerful fertility fee of two.7 per lady, and a big youthful inhabitants. The ten-24 age class makes up 24 % of the Uzbek inhabitants; in South Korea solely 14 % of the inhabitants is within the 10-24 age class.
In line with one evaluation, centered on migrant employee standing and well-being in South Korea, “As of October 2023, roughly 2.49 million migrants… had been estimated to reside in South Korea, which is a big and regular enhance from the variety of roughly 1.45 million in 2012.” The evaluation went on to notice:
The principle trade sectors for the migrant employees included mining/manufacturing (43.9%), wholesale/lodging/meals providers (18.7%), enterprise/private and public providers (16.7%), development (12.2%), and agriculture/fishery (5.4%), and the nationalities included China (33.3%), Vietnam (17.2%), Nepal (4.4), Uzbekistan (4.0%), and Cambodia (4.0%).
There may be extra to labor migration than merely matching one facet’s deficits to a different’s surpluses. Uzbek residents must compete in opposition to different swimming pools of migrant employees, some with extra established networks within the nation. That stated, it’s not like there isn’t a historical past in any way between South Korea and Uzbekistan. (And I do know from direct expertise that there are a number of Uzbek eating places in Seoul; one of the best in my view is close to the town’s solely mosque in iconic Itaewon).
Language, specifically, poses a barrier for Uzbeks aiming for expert or semi-skilled work in South Korea. That stated, there are efforts underway to handle this subject, for instance through government-run King Sejong Institutes, which purpose to show Korean language and tradition overseas. There are seven such institutes in Uzbekistan, essentially the most in any Central Asian state (Kyrgyzstan is available in second with 5).
In September 2023, South Korean President Yoon and Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev met on the sidelines of the U.N. Common Meeting. On the time, Mirziyoyev invited Yoon to make a state go to. Yoon’s predecessor, Moon Jae-in, visited Central Asia – stopping in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan – in April 2019.
It seems that a go to is within the works. One Korean report on Musaev’s assembly with automotive trade figures quoted the Uzbek minister as saying that Yoon would journey to Uzbekistan in June. Musaev advised his South Korean interlocutors that the problem of overseas employees would certainly be on the agenda.