The more difficult it is to find people in the provinces and the higher the intensity of work, the more pronounced the tendency to hire foreign workers is. “I went to the market in Sokcho and bought sweet and sour chicken at the market, and I saw a Pakistani employee guide me in fluent Korean and English,” said Kim Sung-hwan, who lives in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. “I was amazed that I looked around other stores and found that many of the employees were foreigners, so I realized that the situation has changed.”

As demand for foreign workers in Korea is rapidly increasing in the field, the government is also pushing for a policy to increase visas for foreign workers. The Ministry of Employment and Labor announced that it will increase the number of people who will issue visas for non-professional foreign workers to 165,000 this year, the highest ever. The number of businesses where they can work will also be expanded to include restaurants, hotels and condos.