Recruiters seek clarification on Korea deployment policy

SIX licensed placement agencies are seeking clarification from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) on the recruitment policy observed in South Korea in view of an earlier report that only the government agency is authorized to process Korea-bound workers’ contracts. The POEA issued a statement last week that Korea has stopped hiring through private recruiters since it terminated the Alien Industrial Trainee System (AITS) on January 1, 2007. As a result, POEA Administrator Rosalinda Baldoz said in a statement, Philippine licensed agencies that used to hire trainees for Korea could no longer recruit workers under the trainee scheme. Korea has shifted to the Employment Permit System (EPS), which is a government-to-government recruitment system, thereby doing away with private recruitment. This scheme is observed in eight other countries such as Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Mongolia, Cambodia, Uzbekistan and Pakistan. Under this scheme, Korean employers can only get foreign workers legally through the EPS. The POEA is the only government agency authorized to implement the scheme in the Philippines. Korea had abolished the trainee scheme and stopped issuing trainee visas since Jan 1, 2007, Dr. Yang-Dal Kim, president of Human Resources Development Service of Korea, said after meeting with Baldoz recently. But the six licensed agencies -- Dahlzhen International Services, Inc. (DISI), Jerph Overseas Placement and Trading Corp. (JOPTC), Powerhouse Staffbuilders International, Inc. (PSII), Worldnet Business Mergers Corp. (WBMC), Labor International Corp. (LIC), and East-West Placement Center, Inc.(EWPCI) – wanted to inquire about the deployment for firms under the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business (KFSMB), a participant in the AITS. The six agencies were among the eight firms listed in the POEA website that are authorized to recruit Filipino workers for jobs in South Korea. The two others are A.S.H. Manpower International Services and VJ International Services and Trading Co. Manny Geslani, media consultant of the six agencies, told GMANews.TV that these placement firms have sent 120,000 Filipinos on trainee visas to South Korea over the last 15 years. Geslani said the six agencies have been deploying workers with visas acquired through the KFSMB companies. He said it would seem that the AITS has not been totally scrapped by the Korean government in favor of the MOU signed by the Philippines with Korea two years ago that introduced the EPS for foreigners entering Korea for employment. “The KFSMB is still in place and has even renewed the contracts of the six Philippine agencies last September 2006 for another year, granting the agencies new quotas for trainee workers who will be hired by companies and factories affiliated with KFSMB," Geslani said. The KFSMB is being supported by a majority in the National Assembly of Korea who wants to retain the AITS in view of the numerous problems the EPS program has encountered in its first two years, Geslani said. Among the problems with EPS are unfair labor practices, lack of welfare and protection, payroll deductions for food and lodging, and high rate of runaways from their EPS employers. Geslani said the six agencies will ask Baldoz for a grace period to process their selected workers who are waiting for their trainee visas and those in the pipeline who have trainee visas and ready to leave for their jobsites in Korea . Earlier, Baldoz said Filipinos working as industrial trainees must comeback to the Philippines upon expiration of their contract and reapply under the EPS instead of going illegal. Employers will face stiff penalty for employing illegal foreign workers in Korea, Dr. Kim warned. According to him, a huge number of overstaying workers will affect the labor quota that will be given to the Philippines under the EPS. The POEA said recruiters maybe held liable for violation of the 2002 POEA rules and regulations governing the recruitment and placement of landbased overseas workers and Republic Act 8042 or Migrant Workers & Overseas Filipino Act of 1995. For her part, Baldoz said former trainees who are seeking legal employment to Korea will have to register with the POEA and wait for at least six months before they could go back to work in that country. “They should pass the Korean Language Test (KLT) and the medical requirement for inclusion in the ‘Roster of Jobseekers’ to have another chance to be hired by Korean employer," Baldoz said. - Fidel Jimenez, GMANews.TV