With yen at historic low, Japanese workers flood Korea

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With yen at historic low, Japanese workers flood Korea

An employee presents bank notes of Japanese yen at Hana Bank's Counterfeit Notes Response Center in Jung District, central Seoul, on Oct. 28, 2024. [NEWS1]

An employee presents bank notes of Japanese yen at Hana Bank's Counterfeit Notes Response Center in Jung District, central Seoul, on Oct. 28, 2024. [NEWS1]

 
Konatsu Ishigami arrived in Korea on a working holiday visa in August last year and now works as a server at a restaurant in southern Seoul.
 
“I used to travel to Korea frequently before and wanted to stay, so I applied for the working holiday program,” said the 29-year-old. “The yen has fallen so much in value that it's difficult to cover my 600,000 won [$412] monthly rent if I don’t work every day.”
 

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Another Japanese national, who wished to remain anonymous, first took an interest in Korea through K-pop and now works as a Japanese-language tutor at a cram school in the country.
 
“The yen depreciated so much that even if I work the same hours in Korean as I would in Japan, I can save more due to the higher yen-conversed value of my salary here,” the 28-year-old noted.
 
“I can actually feel that there are more Japanese people coming to Korea to work.”
 
Both the Japanese Seoulites are part of a growing number of Japanese nationals moving to Korea looking for job opportunities.
 
The number of Japanese nationals residing in Korea on long-term visas stood at 28,911 as of October last year, up 12.6 percent from a year earlier, according to the latest data from the Korea Immigration Service of the Ministry of Justice.
 
Part-time employees work at a coffee shop in Seoul on Oct. 28, 2024. [NEWS1]

Part-time employees work at a coffee shop in Seoul on Oct. 28, 2024. [NEWS1]

 
The number of long-term Korean residents originating from Japan took a brief dip in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic back in 2020 but has been on a steady uptrend ever since. The number of Koreans working in Japan, on the other hand, inched up by a mere 3.3 percent from 2019 to 2023, reaching 71,454.
 
Japanese nationals staying in Korea on E-7 visas for foreign nationals of special ability soared by 37.7 percent from 2019 to last year. During the cited period, those on C-4 short-term employment visas rose 384 percent and those on D-10 job seeker visas 484 percent.
 
This indicates that Korea, traditionally a net exporter of personnel to Japan, is increasingly attracting Japanese nationals to its shores.
 
The growing number of applications for the H-1 working holiday visa is a testament to such a trend, as Japanese nationals took up 37.8 percent of the working holiday program's 3,826 participants as of October.
 
 
Japan’s historically weak yen is one of the driving factors. The monthly average of the won-yen exchange rate stayed above the 1,000 won per 100 yen mark until March 2022, but has been trending downhill ever since following the steep devaluation of the Japanese currency, remaining in the 800 won per 100 yen range from February through July last year.
 
A monthly salary of 2 million won would indicate an hourly payment of 1,818 yen with a won-yen exchange rate of 1,100 won per 100 yen, but the figure soars to 2,222 yen at a rate of 900 won per 100 yen.
 
In December, 100 yen traded at an average of 934.25 won, still well below the 1,000 mark.
 
 
Aramachi Runa, an international student studying at Soongsil University in Seoul, took a part-time remote job to introduce Korean products to Japanese shoppers last year.
 
“Because the yen’s so cheap now, it’s a struggle to cover everything with the money I saved up back in Japan,” said the 27-year-old.
 
“In Japan, salaries vary a lot by region, so the average salary is higher in Korea compared Japan, except perhaps for Tokyo.”
 
A menu of a restaurant is displayed in Myeong-dong, Jung District in central Seoul on Jan. 6. [NEWS1]

A menu of a restaurant is displayed in Myeong-dong, Jung District in central Seoul on Jan. 6. [NEWS1]

 
The average salary is also higher in Korea than it is in Japan.
 
According to the Korea Enterprises Federation, Korean employee's monthly salaries averaged 3.99 million won in 2022, surpassing Japan's 3.79 million won for the first time ever. In 2002, Korea's average salary was 1.79 million won, less than half Japan's 3.85 million.
 
Korea’s per capita gross national income (GNI) outpaced Japan's for the first time ever in 2023 due to a weak yen, according to updated data from the Bank of Korea. Inflation-adjusted GNI per capita data compiled by the World Bank also shows that Korea surpassed Japan for the first time in 2021, as Korea's GNI per capita rose 84.7 percent from 2000 to 2022 while Japan saw only 11.5 percent growth during the same period.
 
The growing popularity of K-content is another factor attracting Japanese job-seekers to Korea, especially among younger generations. In a survey by the Korean Foundation for International Cultural Exchange, 71.5 percent of respondents from Japan answered that they'd experienced Korean music in their home country; an additional 62.1 percent said they'd seen Korean dramas there.
 
The visa system, however, remains a major obstacle, as Korea’s working holiday program caps participants' working hours at 1,300 per year, or 25 per week. On the other hand, Japan allows Koreans on its working holiday program to work up to 40 hours a week, the same restriction applied to Japanese citizens. Foreign students in Korea are also restricted to working only 20 hours a week in part-time jobs, further raising the bar for students seeking a longer stay in the country.
 

BY JEONG JIN-HO [[email protected]]
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