Cheongyang in South Chungcheong Province plans to bring in more than 1,000 foreign seasonal workers this year as rural labor shortages deepen across Korea, the county said Friday.
The local government has already secured 781 workers for the first half and will recruit several hundred more for the remainder of the year, aiming to surpass 1,000 workers for the first time.
“By expanding the pool of seasonal laborers and solidifying the public hiring model, we aim to ensure farms can secure workers on time while improving living conditions for foreign laborers,” Cheongyang Gov. Kim Dong-gon said.
Cheongyang began bringing over seasonal workers in 2022 under an agreement with Laos, recruiting 65 workers in its first year. The figure rose more than tenfold to 745 last year as farms increasingly relied on foreign labor amid a shrinking rural population.
The county also plans to expand its public seasonal labor model, under which NongHyup, Korea’s agricultural cooperative, directly hires laborers and dispatches them to farms on a daily basis.
Officials said they will make greater use of the agricultural worker dormitory opened in April, the first such facility in South Chungcheong Province.
hnpark@heraldcorp.com
