Won’s drop hurting foreign workers
원화 하락으로 힘든 이주노동자   
   
  
 BUCHEON - Sonny Buccat, a 30-year-old Filipino, is among a large number of foreign workers in Korea who send a chunk of their monthly paychecks to support families back home.

But beginning next month, Buccat says his remittances will have to stop.

“The exchange rate is too high,” he said. “My parents and my wife feel sad I may not be able to send them money for a while, but they also understand we have to wait until things get better.”

Buccat, who works at a small aluminum factory in this Seoul suburb, has watched the plunging local currency eat into the cash he sends home. The won has fluctuated wildly against the dollar in recent sessions, closing at 1,320.1 won per greenback yesterday.

The won has been one of the worst performing currencies in Asia, losing about 25 percent of its value against the dollar this year. The subprime mortgage crisis in the U.S. and a subsequent credit meltdown have triggered dollar hoarding by banks and other financial institutions worldwide. Experts say the Korean currency has been one of the hardest-hit in relative value.

Currency woes are also having an effect on Korean families. Huge numbers of so-called “goose fathers,” men who stay behind to support families who go abroad for education, are finding that their paychecks do not go as far, forcing their wives and children to return home.

“It’s the other way around for migrant workers,” said Choi Jae-kyu, an official at the government-sponsored Korea Migrants’ Center in Seoul. “It can be very troubling for these workers if the dollar gets expensive because that’s the currency they use for their transactions.”

According to the Korean government, there are about 440,000 migrant workers living in the country - many from the Philippines, China, Indonesia and Vietnam - while as many as 220,000 are believed to be staying beyond their legal visas.

Working in positions generally shunned by Koreans - jobs described as “3D” or “dirty, difficult and dangerous” - they form the bedrock of the workforce here, and send up to three quarters of their income to their families back home.

It is difficult to estimate the full amount of money migrant workers send home regularly, according to the Korea Exchange Bank, but local media recently estimated that it could be as high as $1 billion per month, quoting unidentified market sources.

On top of exchange rate concerns, migrant workers in Bucheon, which is home to about 20,000 foreign workers and a gritty cluster of manufacturers, are facing another dispiriting problem: a lack of chances to make extra money.

“Due to the economic slowdown, we have not been able to give much overtime work to our workers,” said Kim Ki-ho, a factory manager who oversees nine migrant workers. “Migrant workers need to work as much as they can because they have a limited stay here.”

Korea, which relies heavily on exports for growth, posted a trade deficit of $2.06 billion last month, raising the cumulative shortfall this year to $14.67 billion.

The weakening currency has been cited as a factor that has raised import costs for oil and other materials, prompting consumers and manufacturers to refrain from spending or investing.

Nguyen Tien Trung, a 28-year-old Vietnamese working under Kim, said he has already stopped sending money home to his parents.

“It’s such a loss if I send money now,” he said in fluent Korean. “I’m also not making as much as I used to, and the costs of living continue to grow here. I’m barely holding on.”

Trung is lucky in that his father continues to work in Vietnam, making up for the shortfall, but workers like 30 year old Joel Ticse from the Philippines, have no choice but to continue to send money because their families depend on it.

“I still have to send money if my child and my parents say they need it,” said Ticse, who works as an assistant at a molding company. “Now I’m even considering going back to the Philippines because the economic situation is not as good as it used to be here.”

   Yonhap   2008  10. 22

.