Caregivers lead rise in nation's pool of foreign employees

Domestic demand for foreign caregivers has spiked significantly since the beginning of the year, with the annual growth rate hitting 9.3 percent for the first 10 months, the country's top economic planning agency said yesterday.

As of the end of October, the number of foreign laborers in the country totaled 336,985, up 16,371 or 5.1 percent from the year-earlier level, the Council for Economic Planning and Development said.

The bulk of foreign laborers worked in the manufacturing sector, accounting for 169,065 of the total and marking an increase of 4,746 over the same period last year, the council's tallies showed.

Council officials attributed the increase mainly to a new market-opening measure introduced in January that allows 19 "dirty, arduous and dangerous" manufacturing industries, better known as "3K" industries, to hire foreign workers.

Caregivers formed the second-largest foreign labor group, with the number increasing 12,839 or 9.3 percent year-on-year to 150,326 at the end of October.

The third-largest foreign labor group was in the construction sector, but the number shrank 11.1 percent to a mere 12,049, the same tallies showed.

While society remains divided over the consequences of an influx of foreign caregivers, council officials said the government has sped up a "good housekeeper" project aimed at encouraging local women to receive training and become licensed caregivers.

With an aging population, the officials said that the country needed to train more local caregivers to meet soaring demand.

Under the "good housekeeper" project, the officials said that the government plans to train a total of 30,000 local home care providers in the coming two years.

The Ministry of the Interior has so far offered pre-job or on-the-job training courses for 12,000 local home care providers, social workers at senior citizens' homes and caregivers for people with mental or physical disabilities.

The officials added that the Ministry of Education, the Department of Health and the Council of Labor Affairs have also organized training programs.