Foreigners find opportunities in Korea as regular company employees

Industry

Published: 14 Feb. 2023, 19:59 Updated: 03 Mar. 2023, 18:25

Foreigners find opportunities in Korea as regular company employees

From left: Nicola Monet, a French engineer at Naver; Genya Smagin, a Russian senior manager at SK Telecom; Sharon Yang, a Taiwanese employee at Line Plus; Muhammad Zahak Jamal, a Pakistani researcher at Hyundai Motor [PARK SANG-MOON, GENYA SMAGIN, LINE PLUS, HYUNDAI MOTOR]

Genya Smagin, a 27-year-old Russian man, is among the first wave of foreigners to work for SK Telecom, a major telecommunications provider, through the formal recruiting procedure.

“I received a formal offer from SK Telecom in 2018, and it was the first time for the company to accept foreigners in their biannual entry-level recruiting, or gongchae,” said Smagin, a senior manager in charge of arranging partnerships and investment related to the metaverse.

He is only one of the increasing number of foreigners in Korea taking this route, a trend that coincides with a growing number of foreign students studying in Korea either full time or through exchange programs.

According to the Ministry of Education, there were 152,281 international students in 2021, the most recent year of data available, more than 12-fold the figure in 2003. The number of foreign residents has also risen over the years to 2.13 million in 2021, 4 percent of the total population.

The tendency came as big Korean corporations like Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor have become increasingly open to hire non-Koreans, especially in software development, engineering and research positions, as they face a shortage of workers for these positions despite constant growth of high-tech industries.

In the past, the range of careers taken by foreigners was limited to a handful of labor-intensive tasks, like construction, farming and fishing, and education, but the scope has since broadened to encompass white-collar positions at some of the country’s largest corporations.

Of 843,000 foreign nationals working in Korea, the number of those employed in electronics, telecom and finance companies increased by 24.6 percent last year to 25,800 compared to the previous year, according to Statistics Korea.

On the other hand, the number in farming and fishing decreased 15.2 during the same period.

Compete for talent

To boost appeal, some companies — especially in the tech field — go to great lengths to offer overseas remote work program so that the foreign workers spend at least several months in their home countries while working.

Line, a messaging affiliate of SoftBank and Korea’s Naver, lets its Line Korea workers work anywhere with less than a four-hour time difference with Korea for a maximum of 90 days. The permitted jurisdictions include Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Maldives, Guam, New Zealand, Australia and Saipan.

Sharon Yang, a 42 year-old Taiwanese woman who works at Line Plus, a Korean subsidiary of Line, enrolled in the remote work program last year to spend time in her home country for two months.

"During the pandemic, I was able to go to Taiwan to see my family while working at the same time," she said.

She joined Line Taiwan in 2013 and moved to the Korean unit in 2019 as a member of the human resources department.

At Line Plus, 25 people are non-Koreans, coming from nine different countries, mostly in North America.

Foreign nationals can apply for any job opening at Line Plus, according to a spokesperson at the company.

Some companies like CJ and Amorepacific, a beauty and cosmetics company, hire interns every year, to which international students can apply for hands-on experience.

More foreign workers also changed a scene of lunch time.

A corporate food court at Samsung Electronics headquarters in Suwon, for instance, serves Indian, Japanese and Chinese foods based on the nationalities of the foreign workers.

Working after schooling

Like Smagin, many of the professionals find their way into a Korean company after spending some time here as students.

Smagin went to Chonnam National University as an exchange student while he was attending HSE University in Russia majoring in world economy. He went on to earn an MBA at KAIST during which he was hired by the telecom company.

Muhammad Zahak Jamal, a 32 year-old Pakistani man, first came to Korea in 2015 as a recipient of a scholarship funded by the Korean government before he landed a Research Engineer position at Hyundai Motor’s Robotics Lab in 2018.

He went on to pursue a Master’s degree in mechanical engineering at KAIST, right after which he entered the automobile company.

"I chose Hyundai Motor in Korea as a place to work because it is one of the largest and most reputed organizations in the world, and it provides excellent opportunities to pursue my professional career,” Jamal said.

He said that he is satisfied with work and life balance at the company, adding that his workplace respects his cultural differences such as refraining from alcohol consumption and eating pork.

"The company is very kind as it provides me with a separate menu every day with food appropriate for me. In addition, no one forces me to drink during team dinners," he said.

Others came to Korea without an experience of studying in the country before, and external factors like cross-border deals affected their decision to leave home country.

Nicola Monet, a French engineer at Naver, settled in Korea after his company, Xerox's artificial intelligence lab in France, was acquired by the internet company in 2017.

The workers at the research lab were left with choices — to be stationed in France or relocated to Korea.

Monet was the only one who volunteered to make the transition after conducting joint research with developers in Korea.

“I worked for almost 20 years in the same company with the same people, I felt like I was no longer moving forward,” he said in an interview that took place at Naver’s headquarters in Seongnam, Gyeonggi.

Having worked in Korea since 2020, Monet found himself well suited for Korea, such as the quick-paced cycles at work and in daily lives.

“I wanted more challenges,” he said, “In Naver and Korea, I was able to do things quickly and well. I guess ‘ppalli ppalli’ was something I wanted. It was not surprising but satisfying for me. Especially, Koreans are really fast when making decisions like which one is good or not.”

Together matters

The emphasis on team or an organization over individuals also stands as a major characteristic of Korean companies, a factor that foreign applicants must consider before making a decision.

To build team spirit, many Korean corporations have months of training where entry-level workers live together to carry out team projects.

“SK has a training center in Icheon, Gyeonggi, and I lived there for two months,” Smagin said, “There, we did all team-building activities from climbing mountains together and making a wooden miniature house in winter days.”

“The hierarchy and authority is still very present in Korea compared to France, even if it’s less present at Naver,” Monet said, “And workers tend to overwork.”

To better blend in such a culture, Monet advised to join corporate dining and drinking session called hoesik in Korean.

In terms of Korean language proficiency, most of the interviewees agreed that the higher the better because meetings and reporting are often in Korean.

Smagin, for instance, earned Level 6, the highest level in the Test of Proficiency in Korean or TOPIK test.

But in the case of Yang from Line, she only spoke basic phrases when she first came to Korea, although she took online courses afterwards.

“The company didn’t require a certain level of Korean, but I thought if I can speak Korean, it will be very helpful,” she said.

Despite those changes, foreign graduates in Korea would still find it challenging to land a decent job due to the visa issue.

Foreign students who decide to find a job in Korea after graduating from university here are normally given the D-10 job-seeker visa, which is valid for six months and can be renewed three additional times.

This means that the visa-holder has to go through the entire visa process after each six-month period and find a job that offers an E visa within two years of graduation in order not to be sent back home.

But for foreigners, two years can be a narrow window, especially when so few white-collar entry level positions are open to non-Koreans, and given how shallow the understanding of hiring a foreigner is in many Korean companies.

Even as the Korean government envisions solving the country’s population decline by inviting more foreign workers and creating new visa categories, many critics say that the nation and its business sector still have a long way to go to fully open up to the newcomers.

In a recent survey of 300 Korean businesses that own a research center, 76 percent replied that they weren’t hiring foreign researchers, of which 43.2 percent replied that it was due to a lack of information on the foreign labor force.

Among other reasons, 16.7 percent replied they were good enough with hiring Korean researchers, while 15 percent cited difficulties in communication and 8.8 percent cited administrative costs and visa hassles.

The survey was conducted by the Korea Industrial Technology Association and the University of Science and Technology, a graduate-level university in Daejeon.

Lee Kwang-hyung, president of KAIST, said Korea should learn from U.S. immigration policy and allow more high-performing international students to domestically settle after graduation.

"One of the biggest drivers of America's growth is the way it accepts international students," said Lee. "When it comes to immigration policy, we must look to the United States. Universities must accept many international students in the fields of science and engineering," and must grant permanent residency and nationality to talented graduates.

BY PARK EUN-JEE, LEE SUNG-EUN [park.eunjee@joongang.co.kr]