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As Korea continues down the trail of a super-aged society and grapples with rising labor shortages in elder care, one migration coverage professional is urging the federal government to maneuver past short-term fixes and construct a system like Japan’s — one which treats overseas caregivers as expert professionals moderately than low-wage, disposable staff.
By 2028, Korea is projected to face a shortfall of roughly 116,000 elder care staff, in response to authorities and trade knowledge. With older adults already accounting for greater than one-fifth of the inhabitants — 10.84 million folks, or 21.2 % as of 2025 — the nation is firmly a super-aged society.
“Even now, the state of affairs is extraordinarily severe,” Kim Dong-seon, a visiting professor within the division of tourism and wellness at Hankuk College of Overseas Research, advised The Korea Occasions in a latest telephone interview. She recalled visiting the state-run Seoul Nursing House, operated by the Nationwide Well being Insurance coverage Service (NHIS), the place the ready checklist was a number of occasions the power’s capability, but beds nonetheless sat empty.
Hankuk College of Overseas Research visiting professor Kim Dong-seon / Courtesy of Kim Dong-seon
“They can not fill all of the beds as a result of they can’t recruit sufficient care staff,” the professor defined. “Legally, amenities should meet the required staffing ratio of two.1 residents per caregiver earlier than they’ll admit extra folks. However on the bottom, operators already really feel the disaster on daily basis.”
Kim led a brand new examine on overseas caregivers in Japanese elder care amenities, printed within the Korean Journal of Immigration Coverage and Administration. Primarily based on in-depth interviews with 13 stakeholders — together with staff from Indonesia, the Philippines and Myanmar, in addition to facility managers, native officers and labor brokers — the examine exhibits how overseas caregivers initially wrestle however steadily adapt and advance when supported by a powerful system.
Japan’s expertise
Japan’s expertise presents invaluable classes, though Kim cautioned towards direct replication. Many overseas staff in Japanese nursing properties initially confronted intense homesickness, language obstacles and cultural misunderstandings, however coordinated institutional assist helped bridge these gaps, her examine discovered. Crucially, a number of actors rallied round a shared purpose: serving to overseas staff earn the nationally acknowledged care employee credential.
The payoff has been tangible. In a single native survey cited by Kim’s paper, 69.8 % of respondents mentioned overseas care staff offered higher-quality companies than their Japanese counterparts, with greater than 43,000 now working through Financial Partnership Settlement packages and expert employee visas within the aged caregiving sector.
“Japan began from a really skeptical place,” Kim mentioned, recalling interviews performed with Japanese operators in 2016 and 2017. “Individuals mentioned, ‘This gained’t work. The language is just too arduous. The examination is not possible.’ However once I went again final yr for follow-up interviews, I heard again and again that the satisfaction was very excessive.”
Facility managers advised her they might moderately shoulder greater prices to safe overseas caregivers than depart rooms empty as a result of they might not rent anybody in any respect.
A senior resident and her caregiver look out the window at an aged nursing dwelling in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, Oct. 16, 2025. Korea Occasions photograph by Ha Sang-yun
Rocky begin
Korea has solely simply begun to experiment with overseas labor within the elder care sector, and the early steps have been fraught.
In 2024 and 2025, Seoul formalized pathways for overseas elder care by way of the E-7-2 visa, a “expert” monitor that locations skilled caregivers in licensed amenities with wage protections and strict quotas. To safe this pipeline, a 2026 pilot program will launch devoted caregiver diploma tracks at 24 universities, remodeling overseas college students right into a specialised labor drive.
Kim argued that bringing in overseas elder care staff is now “not a alternative however a necessity” for Korea, echoing traits in different getting older societies the place as much as 20 % of the care workforce is foreign-born. However she burdened that merely importing staff into the present system — with low pay, heavy workloads and a inflexible, rules-driven care tradition — isn’t the best way to go.
Kim Ock-nyu, professor of social welfare at Sookmyung Girls’s College, who co-authored the examine, emphasised that the structural issues run deeper than recruitment numbers recommend.
Sookmyung Girls’s College professor Kim Ock-nyu / Courtesy of Kim Ock-nyu
“The present labor scarcity isn’t as a result of there’s an inadequate variety of folks with care employee credentials,” Kim Ock-nyu defined. “Quite, low wages and poor working circumstances imply that even those that receive credentials don’t enter the sphere or can’t maintain employment. With out fixing this downside, if we proceed from the mindset of ‘Koreans keep away from this job, so let’s substitute them with foreigners,’ then overseas staff can even come to understand caregiving as an undesirable occupation.”
Korea’s present care aide qualification might be obtained after 340 hours of coaching, with little in the best way of structured profession development, even for many who have labored within the subject for a decade or extra.
“There may be nearly no recognition of experience,” Kim Dong-seon mentioned. “The prevailing mindset is, ‘Why would elder care require skilled abilities?’”
A care employee wipes away tears whereas testifying about office abuse throughout a press convention on the Nationwide Human Rights Fee of Korea in Seoul, on this file photograph from April 27, 2021. The employee alleged that she was fired after defending herself towards verbal abuse from a resident, solely to be reported for elder abuse. Korea Occasions file
To modernize the trade, advocates recommend leveraging abroad recruits to overtake certifications and coaching, successfully turning a labor scarcity into a chance to improve the career’s requirements and wages for everybody.
“Whether or not they’re Korean or overseas, as soon as staff attain a sure stage of talent and information, that must be formally acknowledged and mirrored of their profession and wages,” Kim Dong-seon mentioned.
She additionally referred to as for a cultural shift inside long-term care amenities.
Korea’s long-term care insurance coverage system has fostered a local weather of “compliance over care,” the place the heavy hand of NHIS regulation forces operators to focus extra on avoiding sanctions than on fostering resident autonomy.
Kim Ock-nyu additionally burdened the necessity to make implicit office norms specific.
Korean caregiving tradition emphasizes emotional relationships, hierarchy and family-like dedication — expectations which are not often clearly documented.
“Types of tackle, greeting etiquette, methods to refuse requests, how to answer household complaints — these mustn’t rely upon staff ‘studying the room,’” she mentioned. “Documentation and directions should use easy Korean, not jargon, benefiting not solely overseas staff however your entire group by decreasing errors.”
Senior residents obtain rehabilitation therapy at an aged care dwelling in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, Oct. 16, 2025. Korea Occasions photograph by Ha Sang-yun
The authors mentioned that moderately than biking by way of non permanent labor, Korea ought to let amenities lead their very own recruitment and coaching. This shift requires a “whole-of-government” method to visas and social coverage, providing overseas caregivers a profession, not only a stint.
Kim Ock-nyu warned that treating overseas staff as low-wage, short-term labor “might look low-cost on paper, however the social prices truly develop” as frequent turnover results in “extra falls, extra treatment errors, extra emotional misery, extra complaints and better administration prices.”
The core query for coverage, she added, “isn’t whether or not we use overseas staff, however whether or not we will construct a care system the place anybody can keep within the job for a very long time and earn the belief of the folks they serve.”
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