Foreign workers head into the STX shipyard in Jinhae, South Gyeongsang Province. / The Korea Times File



By Lee Han-soo, Park Si-soo

Korea's economically active foreign population has surpassed a million for the first time, data showed Friday. They accounted for 3.6 percent of economically active people here.

Economically active population refers to people aged over 15 who are either employed or seeking employment.

According to Statistics Korea, as of May the economically active foreign population was 1,005,000, up from 986,000 the previous year. Most had tough, low-paid jobs -- 45.5 percent work in mining or manufacturing industries, 19.7 percent in retail, wholesale or restaurant businesses and 19.4 percent are self-employed or in public services.

Consequently, most of their monthly income was lower than Korea's average of 3.41 million won -- 48.7 percent of foreign workers earned between 1 and 2 million won, 37.9 percent between 2 and 3 million won and only 8.9 percent more than 3 million.

By state of origin, ethnic Koreans from China accounted for the biggest portion of 45.9 percent, followed by Vietnamese (7.4 percent) and Chinese (6.6 percent).

By age, those in their 30s took the biggest portion of 29.2 percent, followed by those aged 15-29 (26.6 percent) and those in their 40s (19.5 percent).

Nearly 47 percent of foreign workers worked more than 50 hours a week, longer than the legal maximum weekly working hours of 40.

Meanwhile, as of May, the number of long-term foreign residents aged over 15 was estimated at 1.425 million. The number unemployed was 43,000, down 5,000 from the previous year.