Prepare for an interview if you want to work as a seasonal worker in Korea

Efforts by local governments to recruit rural workers during the busy farming season are evolving into a method of selecting foreign seasonal workers through local interviews. Currently, local governments recruiting seasonal workers select seasonal workers in two ways: ▲introducing residents from cities where overseas MOUs have been signed, and ▲inviting the families of local marriage immigrants from their home countries. Among these, the method of introducing foreign residents in cities that have signed an MOU with local governments is evolving into an interview selection method.

Foreigners who want to work as seasonal workers in Korea will likely have to make various efforts, including preparing for interviews.

Jinan-gun, Jeollabuk-do

Jinan-gun conducted local interviews in the Philippines from January 10th to 17th to introduce excellent foreign seasonal workers. Jinan-gun visited three cities in the Philippines that have signed business agreements to introduce public foreign seasonal workers and conducted final interviews with applicants.

The Jinan-gun Office's Agricultural Policy Division Director and person in charge and the Jinan-gun Rural Labor Support Center, which operates the public seasonal work project, participated in the on-site interviews and conducted physical and color blindness tests and in-depth interviews of foreign applicants.

This interview was conducted with about 900 people who were selected through the first round of screening after three local governments in the Philippines recruited applicants for seasonal work at the request of Jinan-gun.

Through this interview, the interviewers carefully checked whether the contents of the documents matched, and gave priority to applicants with agricultural experience who can stably engage in agricultural work, as well as those who support their parents and those from families with multiple children.

Jinan-gun is allocated 585 seasonal workers this year from the Ministry of Justice and plans to introduce 60 public workers and 275 farm workers as a group, and plans to introduce 250 seasonal workers on a regular basis through invitations from the families of married immigrants in the district.

Uiseong-gun, Gyeongsangbuk-do

Uiseong-gun has been conducting local interviews in Cambodia since January 30 to select public foreign seasonal workers.

The working group, comprised of Uiseong-gun and West Uiseong Agricultural Cooperatives, selects 40 public seasonal workers from among 5,000 applicants from Kampong Cham Province Agricultural Cooperatives.

The interview screening is conducted through document screening and physical interview. The physical interview includes visual inspection for disabilities, verification of motor ability, vision test, and color blindness and color weakness tests. Additionally, the local living environment in Cambodia will be inspected to support workers' adaptation to the local environment.

Workers selected through this interview will enter the country in May.

Hongcheon-gun, Gangwon-do

In order to secure excellent foreign seasonal workers, Hongcheon-gun began directly selecting workers at field sites in the Philippines from January 29 to February 3. Hongcheon-gun has formed a human resources support team headed by the head of the agricultural administration department and is selecting excellent seasonal workers by visiting three cities, including San Juan City in the Philippines, which signed an MOU on foreign seasonal workers with Hongcheon-gun, and conducting interviews.

Shin Young-jae, mayor of Hongcheon County, said, “In order to support farms with better human resources, we will do our best to improve farmers’ income and reduce labor by carefully taking care of everything from selection to management.”

Mary Eve of Papaya Story