Foreign residents in Gyeongsangnam-do are most concerned about the Korean language in their daily life

It was found that foreign residents living in Gyeongsangnam-do suffered the most from not being able to speak Korean well in their daily life.

Based on the results of a ‘foreigner living situation and perception survey’ conducted on 622 foreigners last year, the Gyeongnam Research Institute released a card news titled ‘How do foreign residents in Gyeongnam live?’ on May 8th.

According to this data, the most difficult thing for foreign residents to find a job was because they did not speak Korean (37.8%). 15% of the respondents answered that ‘there was no difficulty’, which is presumed to be because they easily found a job through an acquaintance or a broker. It was followed by lack of experience in education technology (12.7%) and no job desired (9.6%).

As for the difficulties faced by foreign residents when raising children, Korean education (24.5%) was answered as most difficult. It is followed by high cost of private tutoring (21.5%), difficult-to-help content (21.5%), and education in the mother tongue (10%).

As for daily worries, language problems took second place with 19.3%. The first place was economic issues (30.4%), and the third place was children's education (11.6%).

For this reason, Lee Hyejin, a research fellow at the Gyeongnam Research Institute, emphasized, “It is necessary to expand measures to support foreign residents’ communication, such as ‘visiting Korean language classes,’ and to improve working conditions at work, such as improving the working environment.”

She also suggested that she promote a space utilization project to revitalize organizations such as local club activities, where foreign residents can engage in small-scale area or small-scale activities, and to strengthen social networks.

Meanwhile, the number of foreign residents living in Gyeongnam (staying more than 90 days) was 125,817 as of 2020. It accounts for about 3.8% of the total population of Gyeongnam (3,314,000 people).

Only 1,117 people, or 8% of foreign residents, acquired Korean citizenship, and the remaining 92% of foreign residents and their children did not have Korean citizenship.

The most common reasons for foreign residents visiting Korea (Gyeongnam) were marriage (43.9%) and employment (35%). Study abroad accounted for 9.5%.

Reporter Hasung Song