Life and Career Balance for Migrant Workers in South Korea with Venus Avelino
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Whether you’re looking for your first job, inter-career development, or transition, you need far more than career intelligence and content knowledge to meet the standards and the balance required to thrive in today’s life and career environments. In this episode, I’m joined by Venus Avelino, a bank loan consultant and an education planner in South Korea. Venus has been living in her career for 18 years, and her mission is to help transnational workers and other people in South Korea apply and get loans to achieve their dreams or support their families back at home.
For most people, a career refers to the part of their life that is concerned with employment. However, career and life balance can be hectic, especially for migrant workers who work under extreme conditions for more hours and low payments.
There are about 1,570,000 long-term foreign residents in Korea, and out of the numbers, only about 646,000 workers are legally documented, and they work in small to medium enterprises. Most Koreans consider such jobs dirty, dangerous, and complicated. Since they are highly educated, they get good jobs in big corporations, like your Samsungs, your LGs, and whatnot; this leaves a high rate of vacant blue-collar jobs given to the immigrants.
Employment and working conditions of the migrant workers
Most of the immigrant workers in South Korea are from southern Asia countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia, Cambodia, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Uzbekistan, Mongolia, Thailand, Vietnam, and China. They work in small and medium industries in manufacturing, fishing, agriculture, and construction. The working conditions of these jobs are not easy for them because they are demanding, complicated, and sometimes dangerous. They also work for long hours, and some of them are forced to work overtime for training or to earn more income.
Benefits That Migrants Get From Working In Blue-collar Jobs