GWANGJU < invest Korea

According to Yonhap News,

Are migrant workers and immigrants who married to Korean spouses an answer to the currently shrinking population?

Gwangsan-gu, Gwangju that newly launched an immigrant services division designed to serve foreign residents, said "Yes they are, not to mention that it is an inevitable trend."

Gwangsan-gu, as a town that covers both urban and agricultural districts, said on May 29 that its population for the last decade has been maintained around the range of 400,000, and it is attributed to a steady flow of immigrants.

While the overall population of Gwangju has been on a decline, Gwangsan-gu managed to maintain its size of population that recorded 400,053 in the end of 2010 and 400,654 in the end of 2022.

During the same period, foreigner registration in this town grew by 3.4 times from 6,968 to 22,859.

Last year, Gwangsan-gu becomes home to 55% of foreign residents in Gwangju, coming 21st in terms of the size of foreign population at the national-level.

Those who came for working accounts for the most at 36%, followed by for education, 22% and marriage, 14%.

Nationalities of the immigrants were found to be as diverse as 65 countries, including China (18.6%), Vietnam (18.4%), Uzbekistan (13.4%), Thailand (11.3%), Russia (8%), Kazakhstan (6.9%), Cambodia and the Philippine (4.9% respectively), others (17.9%).

The rise in the International cohort doesn't mean just a mere increase in its population. They are an important part of their community itself as consumers, the town said.

It also emphasized that we are increasingly relying on migrant workers to the extent that Korea's industrial and agricultural sectors will be brought to a halt without migrant workforce.

Meanwhile, Gwangsan-gu reaussred that some concerns over a surge in crime along with an increasing international cohort is just a groundless fear.

It cleared that they haven't found any meaningful gap between local and immigrant criminals, after checking the crime data from the police.

It added that the town successfully made a virtuous cycle, where the immigrants who came first help newcomers to well settle down in the region, that boosts chances for foreign residents to well belong to the local community.

An official of Gwangsan-gu said, "Immigrants are not invisible here anymore. They are our valuable human resources as well as cultural assets." and "Gwangsan-gu will try to reach out to immigrants in need, keeping up with new changes in various sectors such as education, health, welfare, and so on."

hs@yna.co.kr

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Source: Yonhap News (May 29, 2023)

*This article was translated from Korean.