Seoul steps in to curb overstay of BD workers

Badrul Ahsan | Published: August 11, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00

South Korea has taken a set of measures to bring down illegal stay and boost recruitment of Bangladeshi workers in the East Asian nation.
As part of the steps, the EPS (Employment Permit System) centre of the South Korean embassy in Dhaka has recently arranged a job fair with a view to appointing Bangladeshi workers in different Korean companies and other organisations locally.
Only the Bangladeshi workers who successfully completed their job contract in Korea and came back home are eligible to take part in the job fair. Â
Recently 40 Bangladeshi workers who returned home after successfully completing job in Korea, have been employed in different Korean organisations in Bangladesh through job fair.
The EPS centre also ensured minimum salary for Bangladeshi workers like those of Koreans (5.3 US$ per hour) along with four types of insurance coverage like departure guarantee insurance, return cost insurance, casualty insurance and guaranty insurance and other social securities.
Besides, the EPS centre has also taken steps to help the Bangladeshi workers in getting insurance claims who left Korea without receiving their money from the respective insurance companies. Â
South Korea has sought Bangladesh's punitive measures against workers who frequently violate job agreements and stay there illegally.
Moreover, the EPS centre in negotiation with the government will also take some more steps so that the Bangladeshi workers are discouraged to be illegal in Korea.
The EPS centre suggests the government to do counselling of Korea- going Bangladeshi workers at pre-departure stage on bad effect of their frequent job changing attitude.
"All these steps are being taken by the EPS centre to bring down frequent job changing mentality of Bangladeshi workers in Korea thus boosting recruitment of local manpower in the coming years," director of HRD Korea EPS centre, Lee Min-Hwa told the FE Sunday.
He said performances of Bangladeshi workers are better than those of other countries but illegal stay and frequent job changing mentality are destroying their reputation.
"If the Bangladeshi workers do not change their job frequently and stay legally, than recruitment from Bangladesh in Korea would increase significantly," he added.
"If the government takes punitive measures against the illegal workers, then we believe frequent job-switching practices could be brought down significantly and thus there will be more recruitment of Bangladeshi workers in Korea," he added.
"A company recruits the workers and gives them necessary training, but after a certain period, they switch over to another company. It is a big loss for any employer", the EPS director further added.
Bangladesh signed the EPS agreement with Korea in 2007 and started sending workers from 2008 through the government-to-government channel.
The Korean Human Resources Development's EPS Centre tests workers' skills and Korean language proficiency before forwarding a list to companies that want to recruit foreign workers.
According to the data available with the EPS centre in Dhaka, Bangladesh has been able to send only about 10,000 workers since 2008. Of them, over seven per cent became illegal immigrants.
Korea takes foreign workers through the EPS system, which had won an award from the United Nations in 2011 for its transparency and efficiency in hiring foreign workers.
The Korean job market is lucrative for most Bangladeshi workers where they can earn over Tk 150,000 a month, five to six times higher than that of the usual Middle East market.
According to the EPS centre, a total of 10,414 workers got employment in Korea since 2008 after signing of government to government agreement of hiring workers from Bangladesh under EPS system.