방문취업 동포 체류현황과 사회통합의 과제

Abstract

Since the introduction of Visiting and Employment Visa(H-2 Visa) for the Korean Chinese diasporas in China in March 2007, rapid increase of the Korean Chinese workers in Korean labor market raised an issue that Korean government needs to diagnose and prescribe the problems of labor market integration policy caused by the H-2 Visa stayers. Now about 300 thousands of H-2 stayers are working in the 36 categories of occupation in the simple labor market, which take over 50% of foreign guest worker in Korea. Primarily the import of foreign guest workers including the Korean diasporas was initiated to lessen the serious socioeconomic problems of Korea facing the Aged society. However, the massive and sudden increase of the Korean Chinese heightened the labor market conflicts with the domestic workers whose economic situation became worse under the recent global economic crisis. Even though the recent labor market conflict is not evidenced yet, the anti-diaspora mood or xenophobia in some sense, for the Korean Chinese is rapidly dispersing into the Korean society. Therefore, It is essential for the Korean society to depend on the foreign migrants so as to maintain and even accelerate the socioeconomic development in the future. Moreover, considerate designing of social integration policy, especially in the realm of economic sphere, is prerequisite for the harmonious and developmental migrant society in Korea. Meanwhile, Many studies have already explored policies or instrumental tools for the labor market integration for foreign guest workers in Korea. But those studies are done mainly targeting on the general foreign workers excluding the Korean Chinese diasporas. Now recent increase of the H-2 Visa workers in Korea changed the labor market situations and made it necessary to recognize importance of the H-2 workers and analyze their characteristics as market actors. This study explores policy tools for labor market integration of the Korean Chinese guest workers in Korea, based on telephone and face-to-face survey of 600 H-2 stayers in Korea during two weeks of October 2010.