Trade Union Urges Gov’t to Stop Manpower Export

Trade Unions last week appealed the government not to send migrant workers to South Korea as the country’s major mining projects would soon create tens of thousands of homeland jobs.


Thousands of Mongolians lined up last week at the outside of Ulaanbaatar’s social insurance offices, hoping to get job that will be paid by the minimum wage of Korean government standard, around US$1,000 a month. More than 20,000 applicants got registered in few days for the vacant position of 3,100 jobs in South Korea’s small and medium sized enterprises.

The government has yet to respond to demand of Confederation of Mongolian Trade Unions to put maximum annual quota for the export of manpower. The trade union demanded legal form of national manpower planning – estimating future demand by skill level and numbers of workers.

Applicants are required to be Mongolian citizen at the age of 18-39, and no previous criminal record. “Those who are medically qualified will take Korean language test in June,” said an officer of the government-accredited manpower export agency.

Last October, Mongolian government signed multi-billion dollar investment agreement with Canadian Ivanhoe Mines company over largest untapped copper and gold deposit Oyu Tolgoi that will create more than 10,000 long-term direct and indirect jobs for Mongolians in its preparation phase before its full scale production in 2013.

Project developers also signed an additional job creation protocol last April with the Government of Ulaanbaatar to create 3,000 temporary jobs for the residents of the capital city, mainly low-skilled jobs of keepers and cleaning of public facilities that will be paid MNT300,000 a month (approx. US$210).

Not only Oyu Tolgoi, but also Tavan Tolgoi high-grade coking coal mining project is on the verge of start as the government is in negotiations with potential developers including world coal mining giant Peabody as well as newly-established national consortium Mongol-999.

In South Korea, there are more than 35,000 Mongolians, largest number of population outside home country, reported to be living and working both legally and illegally. Remittance inflow by Mongolians living in South Korea to their homeland makes significant portion of foreign currency market.
source: The UB Post