Help North Koreans: Let them come to the ROK to work

(I think that this issue, along with the anti-unification tendencies of the Roh Moo-hyun government are my dead horses. I think I'll end up beating them until I'm dead too.)

I have been calling for a labor-exchange program between North and South Korea since the first post on this blog. I also talk regularly about why the two Koreas are resisting the idea.

Now we have more evidence that a labor-exchange program is a good idea. The amount that Hispanic immigrants and migrant workers in the USA send to their homelands is now almost 30 billion dollars. That compares to the 17.2 billion dollars that the US spends on foreign add to the whole world.

If the Norks would send down 200,000 workers (about half of South Korea's current foreign worker population) and they sent back 25% of the average $800-a-month 3D worker salary (which could be mandated by the exchange program rules), the North Korean economy would gain $480,000,000 annually. That compares to $56,000,000 that the USA and South Korea gave to North Korea in aid last year.

Other aspects of a labor-exchange program:
*-North Korea families would gain about three times (after taxes) the income that they would receive from workers at the 'Anti-Unification' Gaesong Industrial Complex (AUGIC).
*-A labor exchange program could begin as early as the summer of 2004, instead of the waiting for 2007 for AUGIC to fully kick in.
*-South Korean companies would not have as great a vested interest in keeping Korea divided, as they would with AUGIC
*-(for those of you who believe in such drivel, even after 9-11) Common North and South Koreans could interact with each other, creating greater trust between the Korean peoples.
*-A labor-exchange program would create jobs for 200,000 or more North Koreans within a few years rather than 150,000 after the third phase of AUGIC is completed at some undefined time in the future:

Depending on how Phase I goes and the expansion demands of resident companies, Phase II, (to be started two to five years later) and Phase III (between five and nine years) will be built to attract technology intensive light industries, heavy industries, and industrial equipment manufacturers. While barred from Phase I, foreign companies will be invited to locate in Phases II and III. Hyundai Asan projects that a total of 2,000 companies will locate in the complex, employing a workforce of 150,000 by the time Phase III is up and running.

Of course, a labor-exchange program will never happen. That level of interaction between normal Koreans would increase pressure on both Korean governments to honestly pursue unification, which neither wants to do. So we are stuck with the AUGIC, which is really just another back-door channel for pumping South Korean money into the Kim Jeong-il regime. That makes Kim Jeong-il and Roh Moo-hyun happy. It makes South Korean sweatshop owners happy.

Everybody wins except the Korean people.

Comments

[preston]

i was stationed in korea for 3 years i love it there and i miss it now i have always wonderded how i could help the north koreans get out of there if there are ways please let me know