For the first time, foreigners were honored at Shipbuilding and Offshore Day, the 20th anniversary of which was celebrated this year on Sept. 20. The honorees were Komkrit from Thailand who works for Daero ENG, a Samsung Heavy Industries partner, and Sri Lankan national Kumara, a worker of Jiu Industrial, an HD Hyundai Heavy Industries partner. They took home the Outstanding Shipbuilding and Offshore Worker Prize.
Shipbuilding and Offshore Day is held annually to honor 10 people who have made significant contributions to the Korean shipbuilding and offshore industry. Shipbuilding industry insiders say the fact that foreigners received the award this year shows the importance of foreign workers in the Korean shipbuilding industry.
They were selected based on a perfect score of 100 points in four categories. The four categories were the length of time working in shipbuilding (10 points), job performance (20 points), creativity (10 points), and contributions to the development of the shipbuilding industry (60 points).
“We created a new prize for foreign workers this year to instill pride in foreign workers and encourage them to stay in the country for a longer period of time,” said an official of the Korea Offshore & Shipbuilding Association, “We will give the prize to excellent foreign workers next year, too.”
The Korean government has completely revamped the visa system to bring more foreign laborers to the Korean shipbuilding industry suffering from a labor shortage. As a result, 5,209 foreign laborers with E-7 visas and 3,179 foreign laborers with E-9 visas have come into the country since April of last year and April of this year, respectively. Foreign labor makes up about 20 percent of the workforce at major Korean shipyards.
In August, a regulation improvement meeting chaired by Korean President Yoon decided to increase the quota for verified skilled foreign laborers (E-7-4) from 2,000 last year to 35,000 this year and double the foreign employment limit for each company. “Some problems can be hardly solved by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy alone but the President himself directed it, and the problem was solved in one day,” said Jang Young-jin, vice minister of trade, industry and energy, at the ceremony. “The government is sparing no effort in supporting the Korean shipbuilding industry.”