Forty-five blue-collar Nepali job aspirants left for South Korea today under the Employment Permit System (EPS). Earlier, they were leaving in batches every week but now they are leaving at fortnightly intervals.
After South Korea started feeling the heat of the global financial crisis, it was expected it would change its policy. "However, there is no sign of policy change till date," said Kamal Koirala, Nepal's ambassador to South Korea.
Korea has set an annual quota (from March to February of the following year) for foreign workers. For the year between 2008 and February 2009, the annual quota of 72,000 exhausted on December 30, 2008. Though Korea has stopped issuing new employment permits until the begining of March 2009, those who have already received certificates of confirmation of visa issuance (CCVI) will continue to fly there.
Some 2,592 CCVIs were received by the EPS Section under the Department of Labour and Employment Promotion (DoLE). However, 171 CCVIs were also cancelled.
Those having already received their labour contracts from their Korean employers will not be affected by the exhaustion of the quota and thus still proceed to Korea. The EPS section has received 2,814 labour contracts. According to the section, 71 labour contacts have also been cancelled.
The majority of Nepalis are assigned to the manufacturing and agriculture sectors while a few are employed in hotels. "Nepalis work in those sectors where Koreans don't prefer working," the envoy said and added: "That's why the job lay-off by the Korean government won't affect Nepalis."
The number of people with jobs fell in South Korea in December year-on-year for the first time since 2003, reflecting the severe economic downturn, according to the National Statistical Office, South Korea.
A total of 23,245,000 people were employed last month, a loss of 12,000 from a year earlier and the first such annual contraction since October 2003 when 83,000 jobs disappeared. The youth jobless rate covering those aged 15 to 29 went up by 0.3 percentage point from a year earlier to 7.6 per cent in December, the office said.
"Conglomerates in the last quarter of fiscal 2008 will start cutting the number of employees full-scale, or at least won't hire more people in the near year," according to a report.
"However, there are only around 7,500 Nepalis, including students and kids," Koirala said. "Thus the impact on Nepalis will not be huge," the first Nepali envoy to South Korea reasoned adding that apart from this it's a government-to-government contract.
According to the contract between the two countries, after receiving HRD-Korea's final letter with the names of job aspirants, the department begins sending them to Korea. The name-list that HRD-Korea sent is according to the CCVI list. As per EPS rules, the first step for employment in South Korea is the Korean Language Test (KLT) and a stringent medical test.
After the government sealed an agreement with South Korea to send workers under EPS, Nepalis are flying to Korea on an airfare charge of $970. Prior to this, some manpower agencies used to charge hefty amounts of upto Rs 6 lakhs for each ticket.
Outbound traffic up
KATHMANDU: The number of Nepalis leaving for work abroad increased by eight per cent during the month of Magh in comparison to Poush. According to the Department of Foreign Employment (DoFE), 18,715 workers left for various destinations during Magh, up from 17,300 a month ago. The number of workers leaving for Malaysia dropped to 1,553 in comparison to 2,873 a month earlier. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) witnessed a rise, albeit marginal to 2,550 from 2,548 previous month. According to the department, only 6,413 Nepalis left for Qatar. During the first seven months of this fiscal year, the number of migrant workers increased by 4.5 per cent to 1,38,867 in compariosn to 1,32,812 during the same period last year.
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