Non-professional Employment

The status code is E9, and it covers Non-professional manual work in manufacturing, construction, agriculture and fisheries, and services (Employment Permit System).

People registered under the Non-professional Employment (E9) status number 336,713, which is 21% of all registered foreigners. Compared with 271,310 in 2015, 10 years earlier, that is an increase of about 24.1%. The largest nationalities are Nepal at 14.9%, Cambodia at 14.5%, and Vietnam at 12.6%. They are found in 250 districts, and the largest counts are Hwaseong-si with 26,651, Gimpo-si with 13,143, and Gimhae-si with 10,396.

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	Non-professional Employment	All registered foreigners	Relative to total
People	336,713	1,604,920	21.0% of the total
Nationalities counted	36	192	18.8% of the total
Districts of residence	250	250	All districts

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

Non-professional Employment is the largest status 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 Non-professional Employment falls under.

Figure 1.Non-professional 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 Non-professional Employment takes within the E group.

View as table

Year	Non-professional Employment	all of the E group	Share of family
2006	159,921	257,316	62.1
2007	170,670	241,714	70.6
2008	185,348	242,056	76.6
2009	184,958	241,071	76.7
2010	217,108	266,374	81.5
2011	231,248	285,257	81.1
2012	225,001	282,942	79.5
2013	241,098	300,773	80.2
2014	265,256	326,296	81.3
2015	271,310	332,346	81.6
2016	274,168	335,438	81.7
2017	273,406	333,420	82.0
2018	274,727	336,198	81.7
2019	270,751	332,025	81.5
2020	234,287	291,414	80.4
2021	213,329	273,499	78.0
2022	251,654	322,080	78.1
2023	298,504	400,033	74.6
2024	328,114	455,307	72.1
2025	336,713	493,577	68.2

Table 3.By nationality Non-professional Employment top 10 countries, 2025Unit: persons, %

Year 2025

Rank	Nationality	Persons	Within Non-professional Employment	Within nationality
1	Nepal	50,193	14.9	56.1
2	Cambodia	48,674	14.5	74.6
3	Vietnam	42,445	12.6	14.4
4	Indonesia	39,768	11.8	64.1
5	Myanmar	31,528	9.4	54.3
6	Thailand	27,512	8.2	59.9
7	Philippines	25,324	7.5	46.2
8	Sri Lanka	22,702	6.7	61.4
9	Uzbekistan	14,355	4.3	20.7
10	Bangladesh	13,448	4.0	41.5
11	Other countries (26)	20,764	6.2	-

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 Non-professional Employment.

Table 4.Non-professional Employment top 10 districts, 2025Unit: persons, %

Year 2025

Rank	District	Non-professional Employment	Share of local foreigners
1	Gyeonggi-do Hwaseong-si	26,651	48.6
2	Gyeonggi-do Gimpo-si	13,143	49.9
3	Gyeongsangnam-do Gimhae-si	10,396	38.2
4	Gyeonggi-do Pocheon-si	9,073	54.0
5	Chungcheongbuk-do Eumseong-gun	8,062	52.6
6	Gyeonggi-do Paju-si	7,950	48.3
7	Gyeonggi-do Gwangju-si	7,215	46.5
8	Gyeonggi-do Siheung-si	6,541	15.5
9	Gyeonggi-do Icheon-si	6,508	57.2
10	Gyeonggi-do Pyeongtaek-si	6,026	16.7

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

Note: In the district file, Non-professional Employment totals 336,713, 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, Non-professional 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	Non-professional Employment	Share of national
Gyeonggi-do	120,292	35.7
Gyeongsangnam-do	41,718	12.4
Chungcheongnam-do	31,308	9.3
Jeollanam-do	23,984	7.1
Gyeongsangbuk-do	23,333	6.9
Chungcheongbuk-do	20,834	6.2
Incheon	14,511	4.3
Jeollabuk-do	12,902	3.8
Busan	9,706	2.9
Ulsan	8,148	2.4
Daegu	7,450	2.2
Gangwon-do	6,396	1.9
Jeju-do	4,894	1.5
Gwangju	4,601	1.4
Seoul	3,399	1.0
Sejong	1,913	0.6
Daejeon	1,324	0.4