S Korea beckons Lankans

5,400 jobs for Lankans for remainder of this year:

Rasika Somarathna

The South Korean Government has offered a fresh quota of 5,400 jobs for Sri Lankan migrants for the remainder of this year, following a brief halt to recruitments, due to the impact of global economic shocks on Korean industries.

The resumption of employment opportunities in Korea, which are very popular among Lankan migrant job aspirants comes, following a trip to Korea by Foreign Employment Promotions and Welfare Minister Keheliya Rambukwella, where he and his team had successfully negotiated for the fresh bid.

The fresh quota for Sri Lanka comes in the back drop, where South Korean authorities has lowered the number of employment opportunities to migrants, from more than 80,000 one year back to around 59,000 today. The Korean Government put a temporary halt to recruitments from the beginning of this year, mainly due to the global economic downturn, which had an adverse effect on their production and construction industries.

The prospects of over 7,000 Lankan youth who had successfully gone through qualification procedures to be eligible for job opportunities in Korea were badly hampered.

But according to sources, as a result of the fresh negotiations, the Korean job offers are back on track, and all qualified youth would be sent shortly, after being provided with training. According to Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment, the country’s ratings in the Korean migrant labour market has shown a rapid increase, improving its ranking from a meager 13, one year back to a very competitive number three today.

Out of 15 countries vying for migrant employment opportunities in Korea, Sri Lanka is only behind Vietnam and Philippines. According to the SLBFE, the labour complaint ratio against Sri Lankans, which is less than three percent, is considered to be the lowest among all migrant nationalities in Korea.

The SLBFE yesterday attributed the Lankan success in the Korean labour market to the new training program where prospective applicants have to successfully negotiate a language proficiency test as well as a medical fitness exam.

Later they are subjected to a 12 day in-house training on various aspects related to employment in Korea, including a rigorous physical training course conducted by Army trainers.