HÀ NỘI – The language and skills exams for Vietnamese workers wishing to work in South Korea will be held this year between June and September, the Department of Overseas Labour Management announced last week.

The Employment Permit System (EPS) includes three exams on paper, replacing the computer exams used in previous years.

The Korean Ministry of Employment and Labour’s Human Resources Development Service (HRD) will be responsible for preparing the test, managing and marking it and publishing results.

Đặng Sĩ Dũng, deputy director of the Department of Overseas Labour Management, said that of the total recruitment target of 3,600 labourers for 2017, 1,500 will work in manufacturing, 500 in construction, 800 in agricultural production and 800 in fisheries.

HRD will select labourers according to their scores, with the threshold being 80 points out of a maximum of 200. For fisheries work, candidates must score 60 or more in the skills exam, after passing a Korean language contest.

Dũng said candidates who violate the exam rules will be prohibited from taking the test for the next three years.    

Vietnamese labourers who returned home this year from Korea in accordance with their contracts can take the test. In addition, labourers who worked illegally in Korea after ending their contract but returned home between April and December 2016, can also take this year’s exam.    

Previously, the ministry of labor suspended the recruitment of labourers from 58 areas that were home to over 60 illegal labourers in Korea. That suspension has been lifted but the Vietnamese ministry has banned candidates from 51 other areas this year.  

Over the years, South Korea has accepted about 107,000 Vietnamese citizens to live, study or work there. More than 40,000 found work through the EPS Programme. By the end of 2016, some 16,100 Vietnamese people were working illegally in Korea after completing their labour contract. — VNS