SEOUL – The staggering low birth rate in South Korea is forcing the decision-makers to hire foreign workers as the country faces an unprecedented crisis.
In this regard, a presidential aide said on Wednesday that the country needs to consider accepting more foreign workers to increase its working-age population amid a looming demographic crisis.
You Hye-mi, an official working on low birthrates, spoke in a radio interview about how South Korea is dealing with the world’s lowest birthrate and a growing number of elderly people.
In her comments, the official said with fewer working-age people, bringing in more foreign workers could help increase the population.
The severity of the crisis could be ascertained from the fact that in 2023, the average number of children a woman is expected to have in her lifetime in South Korea dropped to just 0.72. This number is much lower than the 2.1 needed to keep the population stable without relying on immigration.
You warned that if this trend continues, South Korea’s population could shrink by about 30%, with more elderly people than workers, questioning whether the country could function the same way in such a situation, Koreatimes reported.
While the current system allows hiring foreign workers for non-professional jobs, You said the government needs a long-term plan to bring in foreign employees adding that the proposed Ministry of Population Strategy and Planning is expected to play a key role in this effort.
She also noted that the pilot program to hire domestic helpers from the Philippines is still expensive due to the minimum wage laws, calling for ways to make this program more affordable for ordinary families.
It is to be highlighted that the birth crisis is also affecting Japan as the country faces a shortage of almost one million foreign workers, 9,70,000 to be precise, in 2040 if the economic growth goals have to be realized.
The estimate from a state-backed think tank revealed recently is enough to scare policymakers and citizens alike.
Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)’s research arm has implied that at the current pace, 5.91 million foreign people will be working in the country in 2040, almost one million short of the foreign workforce needed to sustain the targeted average annual growth rate of 1.24%.
Over the past 15 years, the population of foreign workers in Japan has surged more than fourfold to reach 2.05 million individuals, constituting approximately 3% of the total workforce as of October last year.
Though the country is progressing, Japan’s birth crisis has skyrocketed in recent years, triggering the government to launch an official dating app to help people get married and start families. The decision was taken after the country witnessed record-low birth and marriage rates. The latest data released by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare showed Japan only recorded 727,277 births last year.
