"BOK report sparks controversy over foreign care worker wages," 13 March 2024

A report by South Korea's central bank has sparked controversy here, as its proposal to bring in foreign national care workers to address the country's rapid aging suggested a need to hire them while paying them less than the minimum wage.

... “The bank’s suggestions of paying migrant workers cheaper than the minimum wage are discriminatory and anti-human rights ideas,” said Citizens' Solidarity for Securing the Publicness of Care and Realizing the Right to Care, a major coalition comprised of the country's two umbrella trade unions, the Federation of Korean Trade Unions and the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, and 13 civic groups said on Tuesday during a press conference outside the Bank of Korea.

... "Even today, you are still treating people as cheap disposable items, machines that only do work," said Udaya Rai, head of Migrants' Trade Union in Korea. “The Bank of Korea is attempting to sacrifice and discriminate against migrant care workers in the name of national interests.”

... the report argued that such care workers should be hired directly by individual households, allowing them to be paid below the regulated minimum wage, based on a provision in the Minimum Wage Act that exempts "persons employed for housekeeping."