Crew Employment

The status code is E10, and it covers Crew work on ocean-going vessels of 20 tons or more and similar ships.

People registered under the Crew Employment (E10) status number 20,920, which is 1.3% of all registered foreigners. Compared with 14,310 in 2015, 10 years earlier, that is an increase of about 46.2%. The largest nationalities are Indonesia at 46.7%, Vietnam at 43.9%, and Myanmar at 4.6%. They are found in 89 districts, and the largest counts are Yeosu-si with 2,140, Jeju-si with 1,750, and Tongyeong-si with 1,685.

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	Crew Employment	All registered foreigners	Relative to total
People	20,920	1,604,920	1.3% of the total
Nationalities counted	9	192	4.7% of the total
Districts of residence	89	250	35.6% of the total

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

Crew Employment ranks #4 by size within the E 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 E group, the group Crew Employment falls under.

Figure 1.Crew Employment and all of the E group, 2006–2025Unit: 10,000 persons

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook, each year.

Putting the status and the group on one axis shows the share Crew Employment takes within the E group.

View as table

Year	Crew Employment	all of the E group	Share of family
2006	311	257,316	0.1
2007	2,900	241,714	1.2
2008	4,314	242,056	1.8
2009	5,207	241,071	2.2
2010	6,716	266,374	2.5
2011	8,512	285,257	3.0
2012	9,400	282,942	3.3
2013	11,171	300,773	3.7
2014	13,433	326,296	4.1
2015	14,310	332,346	4.3
2016	14,612	335,438	4.4
2017	15,334	333,420	4.6
2018	16,875	336,198	5.0
2019	17,131	332,025	5.2
2020	16,980	291,414	5.8
2021	17,247	273,499	6.3
2022	19,295	322,080	6.0
2023	20,945	400,033	5.2
2024	21,548	455,307	4.7
2025	20,920	493,577	4.2

Table 3.By nationality Crew Employment top 10 countries, 2025Unit: persons, %

Year 2025

Rank	Nationality	Persons	Within Crew Employment	Within nationality
1	Indonesia	9,777	46.7	15.8
2	Vietnam	9,189	43.9	3.1
3	Myanmar	966	4.6	1.7
4	China	940	4.5	0.4
5	Philippines	32	0.2	0.1
6	Sri Lanka	13	0.1	0.0
7	Japan	1	0.0	0.0
8	Kyrgyzstan	1	0.0	0.0
9	Korean-Chinese	1	0.0	0.0
10	Ghana	0	0.0	0.0

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 Crew Employment.

Table 4.Crew Employment top 10 districts, 2025Unit: persons, %

Year 2025

Rank	District	Crew Employment	Share of local foreigners
1	Jeollanam-do Yeosu-si	2,140	28.3
2	Jeju-do Jeju-si	1,750	9.5
3	Gyeongsangnam-do Tongyeong-si	1,685	31.6
4	Jeju-do Seogwipo-si	1,454	14.4
5	Gyeongsangnam-do Sacheon-si	1,176	28.2
6	Jeollanam-do Mokpo-si	1,152	23.4
7	Busan Jung-gu	1,012	40.7
8	Chungcheongnam-do Boryeong-si	974	18.9
9	Gyeongsangbuk-do Pohang-si Nam-gu	893	19.7
10	Gyeongsangbuk-do Uljin-gun	887	50.3

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

Note: In the district file, Crew Employment totals 20,920, the same as the nationwide count.

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

Year 2025

Status	Persons	Within group
Non-professional Employment(E9)	336,713	68.2
Specially Designated Activities(E7)	81,723	16.6
Seasonal Worker(E8)	31,609	6.4
Crew Employment(E10)	20,920	4.2
Foreign Language Instructor(E2)	12,864	2.6
Arts & Entertainment(E6)	4,224	0.9
Researcher(E3)	3,365	0.7
Professor(E1)	1,729	0.4
Specialized Occupation(E5)	221	0.0
Technical Instructor(E4)	209	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, Crew Employment, 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	Crew Employment	Share of national
Jeollanam-do	3,948	18.9
Gyeongsangnam-do	3,474	16.6
Jeju-do	3,204	15.3
Busan	3,086	14.8
Gyeongsangbuk-do	3,027	14.5
Chungcheongnam-do	2,051	9.8
Gangwon-do	1,014	4.8
Ulsan	410	2.0
Jeollabuk-do	390	1.9
Incheon	300	1.4
Gyeonggi-do	10	0.0
Daegu	4	0.0
Seoul	2	0.0