27 August 2014 - Philippine Ambassador to South Korea Raul S. Hernandez joined a commemorative meeting hosted by Korea’s Minister of Employment and Labor (MOL) Lee Ki-kweon on the occasion of the 10th Anniversary of the Employment Permit System (EPS) last August 13 at the 63 Convention Center in Yeouido, Seoul.
“This is a momentous meeting as we solidify our friendship with Your Excellencies and discuss ways going forward. I pledge to improve working conditions for your nationals and expand assistance programs for them,” Minister Lee said in welcome remarks. “The full support of your Embassies, labor officers and government sending agencies led the EPS to where it is today.”
For his part, Ambassador Hernandez congratulated MOEL and its implementing agency, Human Resources Development Service of Korea (HRD), on the commemoration of the EPS’ 10th anniversary, which was attended by the labor attachés of various embassies, including Philippine Labor Attaché Felicitas Q. Bay.
“The EPS has come a long way and the Philippines prides itself in being one of the six original partners of Korea with its pilot batch of 92 workers on August 31, 2004,” the Ambassador said, adding that, like Korea, “the Philippines managed the EPS based on the core values of integrity, mutual cooperation and trust towards continual improvement.”
Introduced in August 2004, the EPS was designed to provide employment to migrant workers from 15 countries in South Korean companies in order to address shortages in low-skilled labor. Government agencies manage the entire recruitment process to reduce corrupt practices and broker arrangements.
The EPS has contributed to the protection of rights and interests of foreign workers and to the notable improvement of transparency in the sending process.
The program has enhanced Korea’s standing by providing an exemplary model for foreign worker management. In 2011, in recognition of its innovation, Korea was selected as the United Nations’ Public Service Award winner under the category of “Preventing and Combating Corruption in Public Service.”
The EPS is available for workers from the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, China, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Uzbekistan, Bangladesh, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar and Timor-Leste.
As of June 2014, there were 49,224 Filipinos in Korea, of which 22,300 are under the EPS, which puts the Philippines as the fifth largest EPS sending country. END