Quarantine and PCR rules changed
Kathmandu, Apr. 4
South Korea is likely to take more than 6,000 Nepali workers
under the Employment Permit System (EPS) in 2022 – a figure significantly
higher compared with COVID-19-disrupted years of 2020 and 2021.
It is taking in 59,000 workers from 16 EPS partner countries.
About 35,530 will be new while 23,470 will be re-entry including committed
workers.
"It is confirmed that we are taking about 6,000 workers
from Nepal. However, since the demand for Nepali workers in Korea is quite
good, the number might go up to match with pre-pandemic period," said Kim
Un Duck, Representative of Human Resources Development Service of Korea that
manages the EPS Centre in Nepal.
Korea had taken 7000 to 8000 workers from Nepal from
2016-2019. However, COVID-19 pandemic caused a sharp fall to 955 workers in
2020 and 389 in 2021.
Likewise, since other major source markets like Vietnam,
Cambodia and Myanmar are under growing COVID-19 attack, Korea is reluctant to
take a large number of workers from those countries. In that case, number of
Nepali workers destined to reach Korea might increase, said Kim.
Similarly, since Nepal, Vietnam and Myanmar are the major
source of agriculture workers among the six nations for Korea, ravaging
COVID-19 in the latter two countries means the number of workers required in
farming could be managed from Nepal as well.
In the first three months of this year, 1,285 Nepalis – 752
new and 533 re-entry – have reached
South Korea for employment.
According to the EPS Centre in Kathmandu, currently, 28,128
Nepalis are employed in Korea. The largest number – 19,654 – are employed in
manufacturing sector, 8,423 in agriculture, 41 in fishing, 7 in construction
and 3 in service.
Meanwhile, Korea has changed the quarantine and PCR test
provisions for Nepali workers it is taking.
New workers going to Korea from April 1 need to stay in a quarantine
for 3 nights and 4 days (including training period of about 2 days) while
workers making re-entry need to quarantine themselves for 2 nights and 3 days. But
Nepalis testing negative for coronavirus after entering Korea need not stay in
quarantine.
Likewise, quarantine period in Nepal for the workers flying
to Korea is reduced to 2 nights and 3 days.
As per the earlier provisions, workers reaching Korea had to
stay in 7-day quarantine in their home country before flying to Korea and 14
days after landing in the country.
However, all workers going to Korea under EPS must be fully
vaccinated against COVID-19 with the vaccines recognised by the World Health
Organisation (WHO). Such vaccines include Pfizer, Janssen, Moderna,
AstraZeneca, Sinopharm, Covishield, Sinovac and Covaxin.
According to Kim, PCR test is reduced to one time, within 48
hours before boarding the flight, from earlier three times in the time span of
7 days before the flight, 48 hours before and 5 hours before (RDT) the flight.
He said that from June this year, all quarantine and PCR
requirements will be waived off.
Earlier in March, Nepal had urged South Korea to allow Nepali
workers who had passed language and skill proficiency tests and were selected
for jobs in the country and waiting to go to Korea to join their work.
Minister for Labour, Employment and Social Security Krishna
Kumar Shrestha had requested Kim to allow the eligible Nepali workers. However,
Kim said that since commercial flights couldn't be operated from Korea as
tourism activities were restricted due to the pandemic, the country had to
operate chartered flights to carry workers.
Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 5 April 2022.
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