0.78. The total fertility rate (the number of births a woman is expected to have in her lifetime) for the past year. The total fertility rate, which was 1.2016 in 1, fell below one in 17 and hit its lowest point. Seoul's total fertility rate is 2018.1, the lowest among the 17 metropolitan municipalities in the country. According to World Bank statistics in 0, South Korea's fertility rate ranked last in the world, surpassing Hong Kong (59.2020) and Macau (0.87).


What are you going to do?

270 trillion won. According to the Office of Budget Policy, the low birth rate budget jumped from 2006.2 trillion won in 1 to 000.2021 trillion won in 46. However, the number of births during this period dropped by 7%, from 000,45 to 26,42. We spent 16 trillion won in 270 years, and it didn't work.

This measure also came out as part of the measures against low births. Under the current law, among the non-professional workers entering the country through the employment permit system, visiting workers (H-2) can work in the domestic service field such as domestic workers. General employment permit personnel (E-9) who are not visiting Koreans are not allowed to work in the domestic service field due to the nature of the service industry, where communication is important.

The government's plan is to make domestic workers available to foreigners from Southeast Asia. The idea is to reduce the burden of housework and childcare to solve the problem of low births.


To explain a bit more

The Ministry of Employment and Labor is considering adding "domestic workers" to the E-9, which permits temporary employment for non-professional workers in the construction and agriculture industries. This is also reflected in the government's <Employment Permit System Reform Plan> announced at the end of last year.

Currently, domestic workers are legally allowed only for Korean citizens and Chinese compatriots. Let's expand on that. The E9 visa allows you to work only at a designated workplace as an employment permit workforce, and in principle, you can stay for 3 years.

When it is implemented in earnest later this year, we will recruit people who want to work in Korea in Southeast Asia and connect them to families of hope. The Ministry of Employment and Labor plans to select 100 households in Seoul for pilot operation.


One more step

Currently, the monthly salary of Korean domestic workers is around 300 million won based on related job sites such as 'Citernet' and 'Dandihelper', and up to 400 million won if they have expertise. For Chinese compatriots, it is a little lower than 200 million won.

However, outside the metropolitan area, there is no supply compared to demand, and it is not easy to find people. In a meeting with SBS reporters on 9 September, Eom Su-jin said, "I didn't dare to apply because the government childcare staff, which has a relatively low cost, said that I would wait for more than one year, and the cost posted on the job site was too high, and I had to spend the money I earned on care expenses, so I gave up."

In March, Assemblyman Cho Jong-hoon introduced a law to introduce foreign domestic workers who do not apply the minimum hourly wage. Article 1(3) of the Domestic Workers Act, which makes the Labor Standards Act and the Minimum Wage Act apply, will create a proviso that "foreign workers shall be deemed to be domestic workers who are exempt from the application of the Minimum Wage Law." Then, you will be able to hire foreign domestic workers for less than 6 million won per month. Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon, who had already proposed a policy for foreign childcare helpers, also expressed his welcome. However, the bill was met with fierce controversy and was eventually withdrawn shortly thereafter.

The Ministry of Employment and Labor and the Seoul Metropolitan Government are conscious of the controversy over the "non-application of the minimum wage" in Assemblyman Cho's proposal and plan to protect the minimum wage. This year, if you work 1 hours a day 100 days a week at the minimum wage (9,620 won per hour), the monthly salary is expected to be about 8.5 million won, and if you add overtime allowance considering the characteristics of a two-income family, it will be 170 million won per month.

(The rest of the story is from the soup)