Industrial Trainee

The status code is D3, and it covers Industrial technology trainees at designated companies and institutions.

People registered under the Industrial Trainee (D3) status number 931, which is 0.1% of all registered foreigners. Compared with 2,516 in 2015, 10 years earlier, that is a decrease of about 63%. The largest nationalities are China at 35.8%, Vietnam at 19.7%, and Korean-Chinese at 11.8%. They are found in 126 districts, and the largest counts are Gimhae-si with 100, Yangsan-si with 49, and Gumi-si with 37.

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook on Immigration and Foreign Policy 2025 (registered foreigners by status of stay, registered foreigners by status of stay and district)

Note: the status families are exactly as the yearbook groups them. The overseas Korean status (F-4) does not appear on this page. Its holders file a place-of-residence report rather than a foreign-resident registration, so they are outside the registered foreigner statistics; they are not absent from the country. On the staying basis they were the largest single status in 2025, at 556,288.

Table 1.Key indicators and benchmarks, 2025Unit: persons, places, %

Year 2025

Indicators	Industrial Trainee	All registered foreigners	Relative to total
People	931	1,604,920	0.1% of the total
Nationalities counted	15	192	7.8% of the total
Districts of residence	127	250	50.8% of the total

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (registered foreigners by status of stay, registered foreigners by status of stay and district).

Industrial Trainee ranks #8 by size within the D group.

Table 2.Registered foreigners by status family, 2025Unit: persons, %

Year 2025

Family	Persons	Share
F family, residence, family, and overseas Koreans	589,527	36.7
E family, employment	493,577	30.8
D family, study, training and investment	341,450	21.3
H group, Visiting Employment and Working Holiday	84,971	5.3
G group, other	61,380	3.8
Outside the families, other statuses	34,015	2.1

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (registered foreigners by status of stay).

The 6 groups sum to 1,604,920, the same as all registered foreigners.

Note: a family is the sum of the statuses inside it, so adding a family together with its individual statuses counts the same people twice.

The jade bar is the D group, the group Industrial Trainee falls under.

Figure 1.Industrial Trainee and all of the D group, 2006–2025Unit: 10,000 persons

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook, each year.

Putting the status and the group on one axis shows the share Industrial Trainee takes within the D group.

View as table

Year	Industrial Trainee	all of the D group	Share of family
2006	59,806	113,288	52.8
2007	23,127	96,970	23.8
2008	15,463	104,091	14.9
2009	11,612	107,492	10.8
2010	3,771	125,674	3.0
2011	3,133	123,072	2.5
2012	2,817	105,912	2.7
2013	2,632	106,745	2.5
2014	2,529	111,537	2.3
2015	2,516	120,257	2.1
2016	2,078	135,996	1.5
2017	1,741	151,887	1.1
2018	1,587	176,863	0.9
2019	1,280	194,874	0.7
2020	947	168,845	0.6
2021	991	178,836	0.6
2022	1,031	217,267	0.5
2023	1,140	250,374	0.5
2024	1,133	291,006	0.4
2025	931	341,450	0.3

Table 3.By nationality Industrial Trainee top 10 countries, 2025Unit: persons, %

Year 2025

Rank	Nationality	Persons	Within Industrial Trainee	Within nationality
1	China	333	35.8	0.1
2	Vietnam	183	19.7	0.1
3	Korean-Chinese	110	11.8	0.0
4	Philippines	98	10.5	0.2
5	Indonesia	64	6.9	0.1
6	Bangladesh	57	6.1	0.2
7	Uzbekistan	51	5.5	0.1
8	Sri Lanka	12	1.3	0.0
9	Thailand	9	1.0	0.0
10	Malaysia	4	0.4	0.1
11	Other countries (5)	10	1.1	-

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (registered foreigners by status of stay and nationality).

The within-nationality column is the share of that country's registered foreigners who hold Industrial Trainee.

Table 4.Industrial Trainee top 10 districts, 2025Unit: persons, %

Year 2025

Rank	District	Industrial Trainee	Share of local foreigners
1	Gyeongsangnam-do Gimhae-si	100	0.4
2	Gyeongsangnam-do Yangsan-si	49	0.5
3	Gyeongsangbuk-do Gumi-si	37	0.5
4	Gyeonggi-do Ansan-si Danwon-gu	36	0.1
5	Gyeongsangnam-do Changwon-si Seongsan-gu	35	0.7
6	Gyeonggi-do Hwaseong-si	32	0.1
7	Gwangju Buk-gu	29	0.5
8	Busan Geumjeong-gu	23	0.4
9	Ulsan Dong-gu	19	0.2
10	Ulsan Ulju-gun	19	0.2

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (registered foreigners by status of stay and district).

Note: In the district file, Industrial Trainee totals 931, the same as the nationwide count.

Table 5.Composition of statuses within the D group, 2025Unit: persons, %

Year 2025

Status	Persons	Within group
Student(D2)	219,127	64.2
General Trainee(D4)	85,238	25.0
Job Seeker(D10)	21,933	6.4
Corporate Investment(D8)	8,518	2.5
Trade Management(D9)	2,650	0.8
Religious Worker(D6)	1,778	0.5
Intra-company Transferee(D7)	1,089	0.3
Industrial Trainee(D3)	931	0.3
Journalism(D5)	128	0.0
Culture & Arts(D1)	58	0.0

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook on Immigration and Foreign Policy (registered foreigners by status of stay).

Note: the teal bar is the status you selected. Selecting a status outside a family shows that status alone.

Figure 2.By province, Industrial Trainee, 2025Unit: persons

Year 2025

Count range

Note: The boundaries are shapes simplified for display and are drawn as pen lines. The fill values are the provincial totals from the yearbook and do not depend on the shapes.

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (registered foreigners by district and status of stay), summed to the province level.

Note: The map shades the 17 provinces, and the same values are also held for the 250 districts.

View as table

Province	Industrial Trainee	Share of national
Gyeongsangnam-do	222	23.8
Gyeonggi-do	211	22.7
Busan	87	9.3
Gyeongsangbuk-do	70	7.5
Chungcheongnam-do	48	5.2
Chungcheongbuk-do	47	5.0
Jeollabuk-do	41	4.4
Ulsan	40	4.3
Gwangju	38	4.1
Seoul	35	3.8
Incheon	34	3.7
Daegu	30	3.2
Gangwon-do	21	2.3
Jeollanam-do	4	0.4
Daejeon	2	0.2
Sejong	1	0.1