SEOUL: As the first batch of 100 Filipino caregivers arrived in Seoul on Aug 6 in a pilot programme to introduce foreign caregivers to South Korea, controversies are swirling around them.
Apart from confusion over job scopes and a debate on cultural differences, the biggest bone of contention is Seoul authorities’ decision to peg salaries to Korea’s minimum wage of 9,860 won per hour (S$9.57).
Including Korea’s four mandatory insurances that cover pension, health, employment and workers’ compensation, and based on an eight-hour five-day work week, the workers stand to earn 2.38 million won per month, which is nearly half of the country’s average monthly household income of 5.44 million won.
This would make South Korea the highest-paying employer of foreign domestic workers in Asia, more than the minimum 200,000 yen (S$1,790) monthly that Japan pays its foreign domestic workers and about four times what Singaporean and Malaysian employers pay before levies.
The Philippines Department of Migrant Workers sets the minimum monthly salary for all their domestic workers deployed overseas at US$400 (S$527), which Singapore and Malaysia abide by. The minimum wage for non-agricultural workers in the Philippines is Php17,100 (S$395) per month.
Over in Taiwan, foreign domestic workers’ minimum wage is set at NT$20,000 (S$815), while Hong Kong raised its minimum wage for such workers to HK$4,870 per month (S$820) in September 2023.
The project, a joint initiative by the Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) and the Korean Ministry of Employment and Labour (MOEL), aims to boost population growth and counter labour shortage in the caregiving and nursing industries.
A Bank of Korea (BOK) report released in March 2024 had highlighted a critical shortage of 1.55 million workers to care for the country’s sick, elderly and young by 2042 due to a rapidly ageing society. The country has a population of 51.7 million.
The report had recommended paying foreign caregivers wages below the legal minimum wage to alleviate the financial burden of families who hire them. But this was met with protests from civic groups, which called it “discriminatory and anti-human rights”.
One of the groups Migrant Forum Asia told The Straits Times that the caregivers should be recognised as “skilled workers, not as domestic workers, which means receiving the appropriate minimum wage and providing workers with social protection”.
Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon, who had proposed the project after a visit to Singapore in 2022, favours a more affordable wage, saying that it “needs to be capped at 1 million won for it to have any effect”.
In January, his office had proposed for the foreign caregivers to be paid below the minimum wage, which is permissible under Korean law if the contract is established directly between the household and the individual worker.
But since the pilot batch of caregivers will have their employment handled by two government-appointed agencies, labour authorities say that the International Labor Organization (ILO) convention on fair wages of which Korea is party to, would apply. Singapore is not a signatory of the ILO convention and does not have a minimum wage.
The first batch of workers, who were selected based on criteria that include fluency in English and basic Korean proficiency, are currently undergoing a four-week training course that includes an introduction to Korean culture and language, and will start work from Sept 3 in the pilot that runs until the end of Feb 2025.
Seoul city government received 751 applications for the service during the period of July 16 to Aug 6 and of these, 43 per cent were from Seoul’s affluent southern districts of Gangnam, Seocho and Songpa.
Out of the 157 households selected by the government on Aug 14, 39 per cent were from these districts, rousing public ire.
A netizen wrote on the website of online news outlet Chosun Biz: “The people who can afford the costs are all from Gangnam. Isn’t this telling?” Another wrote that hiring foreign caregivers is “like a pie in the sky for the middle class”, while someone else slammed the project as “not a low birth rate policy, but an aristocratic policy” that only benefited the wealthy minority.
Chung Ang University’s sociology professor Shin Kwang-yeong told ST that the high rates are putting the caregiving services beyond the reach of young couples, who will also have issues with housing the foreign caregivers.
“Housing prices are terribly high, the young couple will not have enough space for the Filipino caregivers,” he said.
Housewife Nam Seo-hyun, 30, who has an 18-month-old toddler, told ST that while it appears fair that the foreign caregiver is paid according to minimum wage policy, most households will find it “excessive” to pay anything over 1 million won a month as there are other household expenses to think of.
“It would be more useful if some support can be provided to households based on median incomes,” she said.
Ahn Ji-min, 37, who is currently on extended maternity leave to care for her two children aged four and two, told ST that she does not think that the cost of foreign caregivers is significantly cheaper than hiring a Korean caregiver, which costs on average 2.64 million won a month.
She has thought of hiring foreign help when she returns to her office job, but given the small cost difference, she will consider a local hire over a foreigner as she is worried about conflicts arising from “mindset differences and communication difficulties”.
Wage debate aside, confusion over the caregivers’ job scope is another potential issue that “threatens the existence of the programme”, says Korea University’s sociology Professor Andrew Kim.
While domestic workers in Korea are traditionally expected to take on multiple responsibilities, such as caregiving and housekeeping, the newly arrived caregivers said at a press conference on Aug 6 that they are caregivers and not housekeepers, and that they were told they would perform only chores related to expectant mothers or young children.
Yet, in an interview with The Korea Times on Aug 8, Philippine Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo said that the caregivers will assist with not only child care but also some household chores.
Joint guidelines of the Korean and Philippine governments allow caregivers to perform light household chores for other members of the family.
Prof Kim told ST that Korean expectations would be different. “Once the caregivers start working for Korean families, they will soon realise that Korean mothers will be asking them to do more than what they are supposed to do.”
This possible gap in expectations is part of a multiculturalism debate growing in Korea as it starts opening up to foreign labour to meet its manpower shortages.
“The concept of multiculturalism is very new to Koreans who are over 95 per cent ethnically homogenous. It will take time for them to adjust to this new reality, especially since it will hit closer to home with the caregivers working inside Korean homes as compared to migrant workers in the farms or factories,” said Prof Kim.
He suggested that like the caregivers who have to undergo familiarisation training, Korean families could be given training on “how to have more respect for people of other cultures, especially those less economically developed”.
Seoul National University’s Law Professor Lee Jae-min says that the various government agencies will need to coordinate closely over the “many societal, cultural and financial issues” during this trial.
“It is the first time that they are exploring this avenue, so there will be issues that Korea has never experienced before. But we should see this positively, as a first step in the right direction,” he told ST.
In a joint written response to ST’s queries, SMG and MOEL said that a research study during the trial will allow “final decisions to be made” before plans are rolled out to bring in a further 1,200 workers to Korea by 2025. - The Straits Times/ANN
