Yu Myon Su, Resident Representative of Industrial and
Human Resource Department of the Republic of Korea in Mongolia, has ruled out
relaxing the language test criterion for Mongolians seeking a job in South
Korea. Yu was on a visit to Mongolia to discuss three demands put forward by
the Mongolian Ministry of Social Welfare and Labor to South Korea’s Ministry of
Labor. One of these was to overlook lack of language skills among those who
otherwise met all requirements to work in South Korea.

Yu explained that South Korea accepted workers from 15
countries and could not be expected to relax its standards for any one country.
This year Korea declared that 3,100 Mongolians had passed the Korean language
examination. They would have to go through a health test and then be enlisted
on the labor exchange of Korea. “It is impossible to accept the Mongolian
proposal that everybody who scored more than 80 in the language test should be
permitted to take the health test, and, on passing that, should be registered
at our labor exchange,” Yu said, explaining that increasing the number of
workers from any country would disrupt the carefully constructed quota system
affecting 15 countries.