CẦN THƠ — An increasing number of Vietnamese workers including from the Mekong Delta city of Cần Thơ are going to the Republic of Korea as guest workers through joint programmes between the two countries.

Nguyễn Thị Bích Vân, deputy head of the Cần Thơ Employment Service Centre, told Vietnam News Agency that Gangwon Province has for instance hired Vietnamese aged 30-55 this year under a programme called Seasonal Guest Farm Worker.

Cần Thơ has so far sent 60 farm workers for a period of three months each to Gangwon for harvesting vegetables and fruits, and they earned VNĐ75–100 million (US$3,200- 4,300) during the period.  

Vân said the programme does not require the workers to have high academic qualifications like others. They only need to have studied until sixth grade.

The city subsidises their airfares and health examination costs by half before they leave for South Korea, she said.

Workers with financial difficulties can get a mortgage at a low interest rate, she said.

The workers who have been to South Korea through the programme have said unanimously that working conditions there are good. Many of them also had their contracts renewed for further three months.

Workers process sugarcanes in the Cần Thơ Sugar Joint-stock Company. More and more workers in the city go to work abroad in South Korea. — VNA/VNS Photo Duy Khương

Vân said that the programme would continue until the end of next year.

Through this and other programmes, 102 workers from Cần Thơ have gone to South Korea in the first nine months of this year, 18 per cent higher than in the same period last year.

Vân said the increase has also been enabled by new Korean policies such as the one on allowing foreign workers to work for five years and returning to work for a second time in the case of certain jobs unlike in the past.   

The costs involved in going to South Korea as a guest worker is lower compared to other countries while workers earn an average of $1,500 a month, she said.

Besides, the demand for guest workers in the East Asian country is high, she added.

Châu Hồng Thái, deputy director of the city Department of Labour, Invalids, and Social Affairs, said his department would continue to provide vocational training and Korean language courses to improve the quality of candidates from the city.

It has instructed vocational training schools to co-ordinate with the Employment Service Centre and with companies to organise programmes for orienting students to work abroad, he said.

Local-level authorities should ensure that recruitment companies provide vocational and Korean language training to candidates before sending them to South Korea to work, he said.

To prevent Cần Thơ workers from working illegally in South Korea, the department has undertaken programmes to educate workers and their families in complying with the law, he said.

District, commune and ward administrations in the city have been told to call on local residents and tell them to persuade their children working in South Korea to return on schedule, he said.

If any district is found to have many residents working illegally in South Korea, the department would no longer select workers from there, he warned. — VNS