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There are complaints everywhere these days that it is difficult to find people to work for.

In particular, the situation is more serious in hard-working places such as restaurants, factories, and rural areas, and the fact that there are fewer foreign workers than before Corona is a big reason.



Reporter Jae Hee-won covered how to solve the job search problem.



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Mr. Kim, who runs a lamb skewer restaurant in Yangcheon-gu, Seoul, has one more concern recently.



He's had an increase in customers due to the lifting of social distancing, but he can't find anyone to work for.



Fortunately, the foreign employee who was originally working returned to their home country after the visa expired.



[Ok-nyeo Kim/Operating a lamb skewer restaurant: Now (foreign) chefs have to pay at least 3.8 million won (per month).

(Neighboring restaurants) There are no people, so there is a big problem now.

It was really difficult because two people were doing the work that four people would do.]



Even in the harvest season, rural areas are in desperate need.

[Operation of Paprika Farm in Cheorwon



-gun, Gangwon-do: There were originally 6 workers, but there was only one, and no new workers came in (there are).



This is the so-called '3D industry', and the reason is that the number of foreign workers has greatly decreased due to problems such as quarantine after Corona.



In fact, as of last month, the number of foreign workers who came to Korea to work was 450,000 fewer than in 2019, before the corona virus.



The only increase in the number of working visas is the F-4 visa for overseas Koreans. With this visa, you cannot work in simple labor jobs.



[Lee Gyu-yong/Senior Research Fellow, Korea Labor Institute: (F4 visa prohibited) Simple tasks are very limited.

We need to make it go to a free sector of the labor market (transfer).

(Eventually) receiving vocational training and accumulating skills to create a stepping stone to advance to a more productive field...

.]



The employment of overseas Koreans was restricted to protect the jobs of the low-income class in Korea. In these days, when the manpower shortage is severe, it is necessary to operate the system more flexibly.



(Video coverage: Park Jin-ho, video editing: Park Chun-bae)