이번 주 필리핀 가사도우미 시범사업 도입… 우려점은?
As part of Seoul's pilot program to offer more affordable childcare, 100 Filipino caregivers arrived in the country last month and this week started work.
Our economics correspondent Moon Hye-ryeon has the details.
Last month, a hundred Filipino women landed at Incheon Airport as part of the government’s efforts to address the demographic time bomb.
Since their arrival, they’ve taken mandated caregiver training run by the government to prepare them for the work they’ll be doing for the next six months.
The competition to be selected to employ their services was fierce, with 731 South Korean households applying and only 157 selected.
The majority of those chosen for the pilot program were working parents with more than one child, with the target groups being working, single, or expecting parents.
Caregivers can be hired for 4 or 8 hours a day, and based on a 40-hour working week, their monthly wages total 2-point-3-8 million Korean won, or nearly one thousand eight hundred U.S. dollars.
At point-7-2 last year, the country’s fertility rate remains one of the world’s lowest and far below the level needed for a stable population.
Experts point to demanding jobs, stagnant wages, and rising living costs as key factors.
Dual-income households have surged as a result, surpassing six million last year — with over half of families with young children having both parents working full-time.
But despite growing demand for childcare services, the government says there’s a shortage, and existing options are too costly.
This pilot program aims to tackle this issue – but 1,800 dollars per month is no small sum for the average parent in South Korea, and it’s being seen as one of the reasons why many households that applied and were selected for the pilot program were located in the capital’s wealthier areas.
Yet lowering costs could lead to other problems.
“Reducing wages could make it more difficult to secure workers as foreign domestic workers have many other options once they get into Korea.”
Vague guidelines of work for Filipino caregivers, which restrict them to child care, have also been raised as an issue.
This may have contributed to 15 households canceling on the first day, though no official reasons were given.
However, experts note that, as a pilot program, it offers a chance to improve and could serve as a model for addressing broader demographic issues.
“It would be more realistic to view this as a policy experiment to test how foreign workers can be utilized in caregiving services for the elderly population in a super-aging society.”
The government plans to bring in up to a thousand caregivers by 2028 if this pilot takes off – but discussions are still underway.
Moon Hye-ryeon, Arirang News.
#SouthKorea #Philippines #Filipino #Caregiver #Employment #가사도우미 #필리핀 #근로자 #시범사업 #Arirang_News #아리랑뉴스
📣 Facebook : [ Ссылка ]
📣 Twitter : [ Ссылка ]
📣 Homepage : [ Ссылка ]
2024-09-05, 21:00 (KST)
