S.Korea to launch control tower for immigration policy

South Korea is set to establish a government body as early as the first half of 2023 to comprehensively control its immigration policy as Asia’s fourth-largest economy struggles to cope with its declining workforce amid falling birth rates and an aging population.

The Ministry of Justice announced on Monday it put a rule in place to create such a task force, to be under Korea Immigration Service Commissioner Le Jae-Yoo.

“It is one of the justice ministry’s top priorities,” Minister of Justice Han Dong Hoon told lawmakers, referring to the government body for immigration policy. “Early next year, (the plan) will become reality.”

Han has been publicly expressing his determination to establish the control tower since taking office in May.

TO COMBINE IMMIGRATION POLICY AUTHORITIES

The task force, which will operate for only for six months, is set to create a blueprint for the body. The temporary team plans to focus on the development and implementation of mid- to long-term immigration policy plans, the discovery of internal and external cooperation tasks, the promotion of immigration policy improvement, as well as the collection of public opinions.

Currently, the country’s immigration policy is managed by different entities. The justice ministry controls immigration and refugees, while the foreign ministry manages the Korean diaspora. The labor ministry and the gender equality and family ministry are in charge of foreign employees and multicultural families, respectively. The interior and safety ministry manages foreign residents.

South Korea is expected to become the country with the most elderly in the world with about half of its population aged 65 or older by 2070, the government forecast earlier, adding to concerns that the economy may lose steam in the long term due to the falling working-age population, or those between 15 and 64 years old.

Some industries such as shipbuilders are already suffering from a lack of low-cost labor.

The country also reported the first-ever drop in population in 2021, hit by a sharp fall in birth rates and immigration since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Write to Jin-Seong Kim at jskim1028@hankyung.com
Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.