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Ulsan residents start petition against foreign shipyard worker program

Published: 17 Sep. 2025, 14:46 Updated: 17 Sep. 2025, 16:17

Residents in Dong District, Ulsan, home to major shipyards such as HD Hyundai Heavy Industries and HD Hyundai Mipo, launch a petition opposing the expansion of the regional visa program on Sept. 17. [JOONGANG ILBO]

Residents in Ulsan’s Dong District — home to major shipyards including HD Hyundai Heavy Industries and HD Hyundai Mipo — have launched a petition opposing the expansion of a regional visa program.

Since May, Ulsan has been working with South Gyeongsang to attract foreign labor under a pilot initiative approved by the Ministry of Justice.

However, local residents have pushed back, claiming that the project threatens jobs and earnings for skilled Korean workers. The Ulsan-specific regional visa allows foreign workers, trained in their home countries, to be placed directly into Korean industrial sectors.

The petition is led by the organizing committee for the 5th Dong District residents’ assembly.

"Foreign workers are rapidly increasing in Dong District under the pretext of solving the labor shortage in the shipbuilding industry," the group said in a press conference on Wednesday. "This surge is driving down wages for skilled workers, creating job insecurity, and could entrench the industry’s dependence on temporary and irregular labor."

The committee argued that the solution to the labor shortage should not be a simple expansion of foreign hiring but a structural overhaul that includes retaining skilled workers and addressing the dual structure between primary contractors and subcontractors.

A petition filed by Ulsan residents against the expansion of visa programs for migrant workers [DONG DISTRICT OFFICE]

Residents also voiced concerns about the broader deterioration of community conditions.

"Dong District is already suffering from population decline and shrinking commercial activity," said the committee. "Increasing foreign employment will only deepen job instability. What we need are institutional measures and improved living conditions to help local youth and skilled workers settle down and stay."

The petition drive will run both online and offline through Nov. 7, with the goal of collecting around 10,000 signatures. The signed petitions will be submitted to Ulsan Metropolitan City and the Ministry of Employment and Labor later in November.

Ulsan, meanwhile, is moving forward with overseas training programs to address the labor shortage. In July, 97 people in Uzbekistan completed a training program as part of the country's first "global technical talent development" project.

After three months of instruction in core shipyard skills — such as electrical work and painting — as well as Korean language, workplace etiquette and basic laws, the participants were assigned to shipyards in Ulsan following approval from the Justice Ministry.

Trainees from Uzbekistan attend a session as part of an international cooperation program designed to address a labor shortage in shipbuilding in Ulsan, the first of its kind in Korea, welcoming 97 laborers. [ULSAN CITY]

The training program is a three-way partnership. Ulsan handles the educational infrastructure and visa issuance, HD Hyundai Heavy Industries provides instructors and curriculum and the Uzbek government recruits trainees and offers training facilities.

Ulsan plans to train a total of 411 skilled workers in Uzbekistan by the end of the year, and to secure an additional 230 trainees from Vietnam and Thailand using the same model. Behind this push for foreign labor lies a widening gap between growing shipbuilding orders and an insufficient domestic work force.

According to the Shipbuilding and Offshore Industrial Skills Council, the rate of unfilled positions in the shipbuilding sector reached 14.7 percent last year — nearly double the national industrial average of 8.3 percent. The Korea Offshore & Shipbuilding Association estimates that the industry faces an annual labor shortfall of around 12,000 workers, and by 2027, it may need 130,000 more.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY KIM YOUN-HO [[email protected]]