Starting in early July, “exemplary”foreign workers can be re-employed in South Korea three months

after returning home under a new law that makes rehiring them here simpler and easier, officials said Wednesday.

South Korea softened its rules on the rehiring of foreign workers with E-9 non-professional work permit visas in February, as part of efforts to help small firms retain skilled migrant workers and preventing those with expired visas from overstaying. The revised law will take effect on July 2.

The new rule will be applied only to foreign manual workers who have not defected from their designated workplaces for four years and 10 months.

The new law cuts the waiting period of foreign workers who want to return to South Korea to three months from six months and does not require them to undergo a Korean-language proficiency test, but only if they return to the same employer before their departure. 

(Yonhap News)