The Ministry of Justice announced on March 1 that 1,595 visas for foreign shipbuilding workers were issued from January last year to January this year and those include 880 given to Vietnamese shipbuilding workers, followed by Thai (233), Uzbek (200), Indonesian (82) and Indian (56).
The 1,595 workers are divided into 533 painters, 500 welders, 286 electric workers and 276 plant engineers. The ministry recently relaxed E-7 visa requirements so that South Korean shipbuilders’ manpower shortage can be alleviated.
“Although there are linguistic and cultural differences, the skills and abilities of those foreign workers with the E-7 visa are currently 70 percent to 80 percent compared to South Korean workers and expected to improve with time,” said an industry source.
Source: BusinessKorea