Korea opens doors further to foreign workers in shrinking rural regions

“Faced with a demographic crisis that has left rural factories and farms increasingly hollowed out, Korea will allow small businesses in underpopulated regions to hire foreign workers, the Justice Ministry said Tuesday. The pilot program, which takes effect this coming Monday, marks a significant departure from long-standing labor protections that required businesses to maintain a minimum number of Korean employees before they could look abroad for help. Under the new special provision, small enterprises and agricultural corporations in 89 designated regions may now hire one holder of a "regional talent" or F-2-R visa, regardless of whether they employ any Korean nationals. The measure is the latest attempt by the government to breathe life into the country’s shrinking interior, where the twin pressures of a plummeting birthrate and an exodus of young people to Seoul have left the service and manufacturing sectors in a state of chronic paralysis. “Many businesses in these dwindling communities have struggled to recruit any local workers at all,” the ministry said in a statement, no

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