The situation of Thai migrant workers in the Republic of Korea will be under the spotlight at an international meeting in Bangkok this week.

The two-day workshop will discuss ways to help Thais looking for work in the Republic of Korea , to make recruitment and selection of Thai workers more efficient, fair and transparent, and to find remedies for their most common problems.

More than 14,000 Thais are employed in Korea (April 2007 figures), primarily in manufacturing, making Thais the third largest group of foreign workers in Korea , after Vietnamese and Filipinos.

The InternationalLabourOrganization (ILO), together with the Governments of Thailand and Korea , is organizing the meeting on the “Improvement of the Recruitment and Preparation of Thai Migrant Workers to Korea ”, at the AmariWatergate Hotel, Bangkok , from 17-18 January.

Topping the agenda will be a review of Korea ’s guest worker programme, the Employment Permit System (EPS).   The EPS is managed jointly by the Korean Government and the Governments of the migrants’ countries of origin.

The EPS was introduced in 2003 and followed the Industrial Trainee System (ITS).  The ITS, which was phased out in 2007, was criticized for not giving foreign workers enough rights, including the right to adequate compensation.  By contrast, the EPS in theory gives foreign workers the same rights as Korean workers, including the right to join a Korean trade union, and access to the insurance and pension systems.

A survey commissioned by the ILO and the Human Resources Development Service of Korea in 2007 found that Thai workers face some problems in Korea but were generally satisfied with the mandatory training and preparation they need to go through before taking up employment. 

The survey found that the cost to a Thai of being recruited for work in Korea is comparatively low at about US$1,000.  However, the cost of language tuition (passing a Korean language test is compulsory) is high, at about US$300. About one in ten Thai workers relied on recruitment agencies because they lacked information about or couldn’t understand the EPS.  Thai workers also wait the longest time between applying and being offered a job, an average (median) time of about 8 months.

About half of the Thai workers surveyed said they had some reason to complain about their work or treatment and of these almost all had difficulty making their complaints understood. Some 27 per cent of the Thai workers surveyed reported their actual work in Korea was different from what was outlined in their job contract. 

"We expect this meeting will help to improve the management oflabourmigration between Thailand and Korea ,” said the ILO’sRegional Director for Asia and the Pacific, Ms Sachiko Yamamoto, who welcomed delegates to the meeting. “If Thai workers are better prepared for and better-adjusted to their new working environment in Korea , then they will ultimately be more productive”.

The workshop is being jointly organized by the ILO, the Ministry ofLabourof Thailand , the Korean Ministry of Labour, HRD Korea and the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency (KOSHA).

For more information please contact:

RakawinLeechanavanichpan
Programme Officer
ILO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific
Tel: +662 288 2626
e-mail

Sophy Fisher
Regional Information Officer
ILO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific
Tel: +662 288 2482
e-mail