해외취업 해기사의 외화획득액 실증분석: 미국선사 Lasco의 사례

Abstract

It is a well-known fact that merchant marine officers played a leading role in the development of Korea’s modern shipping industry to a global level in just half a century. This had ‘internal and external economic effect’ on the growth of the shipping industry through the development of related industries such as overseas employment which started in the mid-1960s, foreign currency acquisition, manpower supply business, shipping agency business, and shipowning. Among them, it can be said that the acquisition of foreign currency by overseas employed seafarers was of great economic significance in that it provided foreign currency that was absolutely necessary in the early stages of economic development. From 1965 to 1999, overseas employed seafarers earned US$ 826,178,000, while the Korean nurses and miners in West Germany remitted US$ 100,150,000 to Korea between 1963 and 1977. This study will calculate the lifetime foreign currency wage earning of a Korean marine officer who worked for Lasco, an American shipping company, by analyzing his monthly wage statement from 1978 to 1992. As a result of the analysis, it was found that he earned US$ 234,230, equivalent to 166,067,839 Korean Won, during the 11 years and 5 months on board. Converting this to the average monthly wage during the on-boarding period, it is 1,205,282 Won(current value 4,570,587 Won), and when converted to the average monthly wage during the working period, it is 1,031,602 Won(current value 3,911,968 Won). If we add 30% of onboard pay to this and estimate the real average monthly wage, this is equivalent to about 3.8 times the average monthly wage in manufacturing industry. This study is meaningful in that it empirically confirmed the claims that the wage of seafarers were 3 – 4 times higher than that of land workers.