The Govemance of Foreign Workers in Korea and Japan

Korea and Japan have experienced a rapid rise in the number of foreign workers since the late 1980s due to a significant labor shortage in the manufacturing industries. With the imrnigration policy permitting foreign workers as a last resort, both countries have accepted foreign workers on a tempory basis and have attempted to curtail the inflow of unskilled workers. However, these tenets of the migrant worker policy were not successfully adhered to due to the labor market s structural reliance on migrant workers; ey only resulted in the illegal residence of these workers. In Korea and Japan, although foreign workers are predominantly from Asian countries, their occupations and nationalities have been diversifying. The NGOs of Korea and Japan have been actively promoting 삼le human rights of migrant workers. Furler， the Koreans are pressurizing the central government to provide more protective regulations and Japanese social services at the grassroot level. In the future, a more flexible and accommodating governance of foreign workers is likely to be formed in both counbes with inclusive democratic politics and each government having an interest in regional cooperation.