Foreign workers in S.Korea surpasses 1 million

The number of foreign workers in South Korea has broken past the 1 million mark.

According to Statistics Korea on Tuesday, as of May, there were 1.56 million foreign nationals aged 15 and older living in the country, an increase of 130,000, or 9.1%, from last year.

Of these, 1.01 million were employed, up 87,000 from last year. This is the first year the number of foreigners employed exceeded 1 million.

By nationality, Korean-Chinese had the largest number of employed workers at 341,000, followed by Vietnamese at 123,000.

By industry, mining and manufacturing employed the most people (461,000). Retail, accommodation, food services (191,000), and business, personal, and public services (144,000) also exceeded 100,000.

The average monthly wage level of foreign workers was 489,000 in the 2 million to 3 million won range, followed by 354,000 in the 3 million won and above range.

Write to Kwang-Sik Lee at bumeran@hankyung.com