South Korea Quietly Scales Back on Multi-Year Foreign Worker Permits

Late last year South Korea set its 2026 ceiling for E8 + E9 permits at 191,000.

Over the past two years, Korea ran historically large intakes under the Employment Permit System (E-9) to deal with post-COVID labour shortages. In 2024 the E-9 quota alone peaked at around 165,000. For 2025 it was trimmed to 130,000. Now for 2026, the government has cut it sharply again, down to just 80,000.

This 51% drop primarily represent reduced demand from employers in manufacturing and construction that are cited in the article as experiencing less acute needs a few years after the pandemic.

The E-8 seasonal worker quota, however, is being expanded to 109,000, almost tripling in 3 years, mainly for agriculture, fisheries and basic services in rural communities facing population decline and aging. This represents a 13,000 person increase over 2025.

In an OECD wide trend, Korea joins many other countries dialing back medium and long-term workers in favor of short-term, rotational labour. For migrant hopefuls to that part of the world, this means fewer multi-year stability pathways and more short-stay, cyclical work opportunities.

Skilled worker pathways and the recently launched K-STAR and F2 visa pathways remain un-affected. I'll do a deeper dive on some of these later.