Overseas vacationers sporting hanbok take commemorative photographs at Gyeongbok Palace in Seoul, Nov. 19. Korea Instances photograph by Shim Hyun-chul
The variety of foreigners residing in South Korea surpassed 2.8 million for the primary time in October, pushed by will increase in long-term stays for work, examine and seasonal employment, authorities knowledge confirmed Saturday.
In keeping with the immigration knowledge from the justice ministry, 2,837,525 overseas nationals had been registered as staying within the nation as of October, up 3.6 p.c from the earlier month.
The overseas resident inhabitants had hit a pre-pandemic peak of two.524 million in 2019, then fell sharply to 1.956 million in 2021 as a result of COVID-19. It rebounded to 2.507 million in 2023 and climbed to 2.65 million in 2024.
By kind of keep, long-term residents totaled about 2.16 million, up 6.3 p.c from a yr earlier, whereas short-term residents rose 2.7 p.c to 676,000.
Amongst visa classes, seasonal employees underneath the E-8 visa surged 58.7 p.c on-year to 65,000. Holders of the D-2 pupil visa elevated 22.1 p.c to 222,000, whereas E-9 non-professional employment visa holders rose 2.4 p.c to 335,000.
Chinese language nationals accounted for the most important share by nationality at 975,000, or 34.4 p.c, adopted by residents of Vietnam, the USA and Thailand at 12.5 p.c, 6.9 p.c and 6 p.c, respectively.
