[Editorial] Abolish 'Industrial Trainee' Program

The "employment approval program" adopted to resolve civil rights infringements towards legal foreign workers and also illegal foreign labor has been in effect for a full year. From the start it was considered problematic that the program was being run at the same time as the "industrial trainee program," and those concerns turned out to been correct.

According to figures released Tuesday by the Korea Labor Institute (KLI), the "employment approval program" improved the civil rights migrant laborers, but the number of illegal workers actually increased. The percentage of illegal aliens in the foreign workforce had dropped to 35 percent as a result of the "legalization" program, but as of last May the ratio rose again to 55 percent. The experts say the reason the situation is not improving is because of the industrial trainee program, which produces a large number of illegal workers. The majority of illegal foreign workers are people who entered the country as trainees and then left their places of work. The government wanted to do away with the trainee program, but retreated from that plan when industry representatives expressed worries about higher labor costs.

KLI's figures show that worries about the employment approval program were unwarranted. 58.4 percent of the 300 companies using the program said they think the industrial trainee program should be abolished. 67.8 percent of companies that had hosted "trainees" said it should be done away with as well. The reason is simple. There is little difference in labor cost when it comes to each program, and yet people are more satisfied with the employment approval program. That being the case there's no reason to insist on maintaining the program that how it leads to infringements of civil rights.

The government had decided to finally do away with "industrial training" in 2007, but now it is being criticized by organizations that support foreign workers for deciding to accept more foreign trainees during the second half of this year. You have to doubt the government's intentions when it decides to accept trainees, who stay up to periods of three years, when there will be barely more than a year before the program ends. The government needs to give up its affection for the industrial trainee program and discontinue it immediately.

The Hankyoreh, 10 August 2005.

[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS)]