“Foreign workers in South Korea struggle under dire conditions”

… Facing a declining South Korean population (0.72 children per woman in 2023) and the abandonment of low-skilled, strenuous, and dangerous jobs like heavy industry, agriculture, or fishing, the country has turned to immigrant labor to keep its economy running…

… while the world's thirteenth-largest economy increasingly relies on this low-cost labor, the country treats them harshly…

At the Taean fishery, about 30 foreign workers live in converted containers in the company's parking lot, sometimes two or three in a space of ten square meters. "I work between fifteen and twenty hours a day for about $2,200 a month," explains Duc, one of the employees. Fourteen years ago, he left his wife and five children in Vietnam to provide them with a better life by working in Korea. With years of experience, he is the group's senior member and the liaison between the Korean boss and the Vietnamese employees…

… Duc arrived legally with a fisherman's visa, which confines him to work on the company's trawler for three renewable years. "It's a tough job; it's very dangerous," he said. "People have had their arms crushed in the machines or have been crushed by the masts." …