I, who worked as an E-9 worker in Korea, came back to Vietnam and became successful!

While I was living in Vietnam with the intention of overcoming poverty, I learned about Korea's employment permit system. I studied harder than anyone else, passed the Korean Language Proficiency Test, and entered Korea in 2006 as a fishery worker. At the first business, we mainly went out on boats and caught octopuses. Now it's just a memory, but at the time, my hands were as cold as ice and my body was shaking a lot from catching octopuses on a cold fishing boat. It was very difficult, but I worked hard while thinking of my grandmother and mother in Vietnam. A year later, I joined an oyster farming company in Tongyeong, Gyeongsangnam-do. Even after work, if a problem arose at the company, I immediately rushed to deal with it, and I did my best to work, including using my lunch break to learn and research ways to improve production.

The employer gave me the opportunity to take charge of all the machines in the factory, and as a result of my best efforts, I invented an efficient oyster washer that could replace three workers. After that, I invented several more machines and studied Korean diligently. Because I worked so hard, my salary gradually increased. My parents back home in Vietnam built a new house, helped my younger siblings study, and even bought land. The business owner and his wife treated me as their adopted son and helped me acquire Korean citizenship.

However, due to insufficient residency period, I was unable to acquire citizenship and returned to Vietnam in 2011. My time in Korea was the most precious time of my life when I felt the warm love of the business owner couple and the affection of my colleagues. After returning to Korea, I worked as a technical team leader at a Korean company specializing in industrial machinery for several years, and then started a machinery product production company called ‘Vietnam CLC Trading Production and Service’ in 2019. In the beginning, running a business was difficult due to fierce competition. However, I slept 2 hours a day or stayed up all night to manufacture product samples. In particular, through my experience gained in Korea and my efforts to understand the Vietnamese business environment well, I was able to significantly increase the number of orders in 4 months.

Currently, we have grown into a partner company of not only local Vietnamese companies but also representative Korean companies such as Samsung and LG.

In the beginning, the company had 5 employees, 1 CNC processing machine, a factory area of ​​100㎡, and annual sales of 3 billion dong. However, within 5 years of founding the company, it grew to 30 employees, 10 CNC processing machines, and 15 billion dong in annual sales.

The future goal is to grow to 50 to 60 employees, annual sales of 25 billion dong, and a factory area of ​​800 to 1,000 m2.

I went to Korea to overcome poverty, and now I am the president of a company, and the company is also achieving great results. Thanks to the Employment Permit System, I was able to go to Korea and work hard. After returning from Korea, I started a business based on my experience in Korea and was successful.

I would like to thank the Korean Ministry of Employment and Labor and the Human Resources Development Service of Korea, and I hope that my relatives, friends, and more Vietnamese workers can go to Korea and get jobs. I hope they all become workers who grow through their experiences in Korea.

<This article received the grand prize from the Ministry of Employment and Labor’s ‘Employment Permit System Workers’ Best Practices>

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