SEOUL, 17 June 2014 – A senior official of the South Korean agency tasked to manage the flow of foreign migrant workers into the country praised Filipino workers for their work ethic during a call on Philippine Ambassador to South Korea Raul S. Hernandez at the Embassy Chancery on Tuesday, 17 June 2014.

Director General of the Human Resource Development Service of Korea (HRD Korea) Mr. Park Chan Seop, met Ambassador Hernandez for the first time, together with the Senior Executive Vice-President and General Manager Nho Moo Jong of the Korea Aerospace Industries, Ltd. (KAI).

“HRD Korea would like to express our sincere gratitude on your Embassy's cooperation and your Labor Office with regard to the Employment Permit System,” Director General Park said, referring to the EPS, a Korean government program where Korean employers are allowed to hire foreign workers for jobs Korean workers are not willing or capable of doing.

There are 15 EPS sending countries and the first 92 EPS workers who arrived in Korea in 2004 were Filipinos, Director General Park added.

“Korea is very generous and helpful to the Philippines,” Ambassador Hernandez said, citing the assistance the Korean government and people extended to the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan. “It is host to a good number of Filipino workers and the labor conditions are acceptable.”

KAI General Manager Nho, for his part, said his company is in the final stages of organizing – with the assistance of the Embassy and HRD Korea – an educational program inviting Filipino EPS workers to better appreciate Korea’s civil aviation industry as part of its corporate social responsibility.

The two day program will enable the workers to understand aviation by theoretical and experimental approaches through an aircraft fundamental theory and field experience, said KAI General Manager Nho.

HRD Korea, a government agency attached to Korea’s Ministry of Employment and Labor is the implementing/receiving agency of foreign workers under the Employment Permit System.

As of April 2014, there are 15,028 registered Filipino EPS. Korea’s Ministry of Employment and Labor (MOEL) and the Philippines’ Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) have renewed on 08 April 2014 the MOU on the Sending and Receiving of Workers under the EPS.