Foreign workforce at construction sites reaches 14.7% as reliance grows.

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Foreign workforce at construction sites reaches 14.7% as reliance grows.

Published: 20 May. 2025, 17:12 Updated: 21 May. 2025, 14:15

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

A DL E&C employee guides a foreign worker at an apartment construction site in the Seoul metropolitan area through an AI-based automatic translation system on Dec. 10, 2024. [YONHAP]

Roughly 230,000 foreign nationals worked at construction sites across Korea last year, accounting for 14.7 percent of the total workforce and highlighting the industry’s growing reliance on migrant labor. The figure is up from 11.8 percent in 2020, 12.2 percent in 2021, and 12.7 percent in 2022.

A report released by the Research Center of the Construction Workers Mutual Aid Association on Tuesday found that 229,541 foreigners were employed in the sector in 2024, including those who worked for just a single day. This means that at least two out of 10 construction workers here are foreigners.

The actual number may be even higher, the association said, since many smaller construction sites fall outside official reporting thresholds. Only public projects over 100 million won ($71,800) and private ones over 5 billion won are required to register workers for retirement benefits. Undocumented workers are omitted from the statistics.

Ethnic Koreans from China — known as Joseonjok — made up the largest share at 83.7 percent, followed by Chinese nationals at 5.9 percent, Vietnamese at 2.2 percent and ethnic Koreans from Russia — known as Koryoin — at 1.7 percent, among verified nationalities.

Of the workers whose visa status was verified, 50.4 percent were holders of the F-4 visa for overseas Koreans.

Construction workers carry out tasks at a new apartment construction site in Seoul on May 1. [NEWS1]

While F-4 visa holders are not legally permitted to engage in “manual labor” including day work on construction sites, over half of the foreign workers were doing so under that visa type.

The domestic construction workforce, meanwhile, is aging.

Korean workers start their first construction job at an average age of 45.7 and are now 51.8 years old on average.

This trend stems from declining youth participation in the industry.

Foreign workers, in contrast, started at an average age of 42.5 and currently average 47.4 years old, making them 3.2 years younger at entry and 4.4 years younger than their Korean counterparts.

As the presence of foreign labor at sites increases, construction companies have adopted translation tools to prevent safety accidents.

GS E&C developed “Xi Voice,” an AI-based interpretation tool for use on-site. Daewoo E\&C has deployed full-time interpreters at sites since 2023.

DL E&C created a safety education animation that conveys key safety protocols even to those who cannot read Korean and translated it into six languages.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government also introduced a real-time interpretation app at major road and subway construction sites in the city starting last year.

Translated from the JoongAng Ilbo using generative AI and edited by Korea JoongAng Daily staff.
BY LEE HYUN [[email protected]]