South Korean construction firms are expanding their foreign workforce as the industry gains momentum in overseas orders, hitting a record high in the first half of this year.
Local builders are in dire need of foreign workers who are well informed about the Central Asian and Latin American markets, as the revenue from overseas construction is taking up an increasing portion of their earnings, according to industry watchers.
Buoyed by winning multi-billion-dollar plant construction orders in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, Hyundai Engineering plans to expand its foreign labor pool to 100 individuals from 65 by the end of this year.
“We have been hiring Indian and Filipino workers who have excellent skills in architectural design and are fluent in English, but we plan to recruit workers from the Middle East and Africa as a part of a strategy to cultivate the new market,” an official at Hyundai Engineering said.
According to a recent report by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, Korean construction companies reaped their highest-ever earnings from overseas operations in the first half of this year, totaling $37.5 billion.
By region, orders from the Middle East accounted for 66 percent, or $24.7 billion, of the total, while orders from Latin America jumped more than 60-fold to $5.49 billion from $90 million in the same period last year.
Central Asia and Latin America have emerged as new markets for local construction firms as they are placing large-scale orders created by rapid economic development based on energy resources such as oil and gas.
Hyundai Engineering and Construction, which has only 18 foreign workers at its headquarters, also plans to increase the number of foreign employees from the second half of this year.
“In the next three to four years, the number of foreign employees will be expanded to 100, mainly people from Latin America and Central Asia, which reflects the increasing number of oversea orders,” a Hyundai E&C official said.
