The Ministry of Justice ordered immigration offices nationwide to quickly process documents related to foreign seasonal workers for the spring busy farming season. According to the article, the main document is the Certificate of Visa Issuance Confirmation. This document is an approval paper that foreign workers need before they can get a Korean visa. There are currently about 3700 unprocessed cases. About 2000 more are expected to be received by the end of this month. The Ministry of Justice said it will finish the review as soon as possible so the labor shortage during the busy farming season does not get worse. The article title also includes the expression 'the era of 100K seasonal workers.' This means foreign seasonal workers now take a big share in Korean rural areas. The article shows that document processing speed is not just a simple administrative issue, but is directly connected to actual farm labor.
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Why does news about delayed documents sound so sensitive
When you live in Korea, news like this can sometimes feel strangely big. It looks like a story about administrative documents being a little delayed, but in rural areas, those few days can directly shake the planting time or harvest time. Farming is not like factory work where you can just say, 'Let's push it to next week,' so the moment the entry schedule is off, people at the site become worried right away.
The background is an old structural problem. The farm household population fell by 748 thousand over 10 years to about 2004 thousand, and among them, the share of people age 65 or older is 55.8%. With fewer people to work and the people who remain getting older, it has become hard to fill short and difficult jobs like the busy farming season on time with only local workers.
So foreign seasonal workers are no longer just 'extra workers who are nice to have.' They have become basic workers, and without them, the farming schedule itself can be shaken. They are mainly sent to jobs that need many hands at once, like greenhouse crops such as strawberries, vinyl greenhouse work, planting, transplanting, harvesting, and sorting. If this stage is delayed, farms have to quickly find more expensive replacement workers, hold on with family labor, or in serious cases give up part of their crops.
In agriculture, if you miss the work timing, both quality and price can be affected.
So visa document delays are seen not as an administrative issue, but as a sign of production problems.
Seasonal workers are not just a temporary supplement anymore. They have already become a big part of rural areas
Move your mouse over the dots to see the allocation size at each point.
If the Certificate for Confirmation of Visa Issuance gets delayed, where does the problem start?
For seasonal workers, it is not 'start work right away as soon as the visa comes out.' There are many middle steps, so if just one step gets delayed, everything gets late.
Step 1: First gather farm demand
The local government checks how many workers farms need and makes an operation plan. From this point, they already start counting backward to match the busy farming season schedule.
Step 2: Ministry of Justice allocation and applicant selection happen
The local government applies to the Ministry of Justice for allocation, and in the local area there may also be interviews, fitness tests, and pre-training. The hiring process itself is like a small project.
Step 3: Prepare the contract and housing documents
Documents like the standard labor contract, passport copy, housing inspection confirmation, and family relationship proof must all match properly. If even one paper is off, you cannot move to the next step.
Step 4: Receive the Certificate for Confirmation of Visa Issuance
This document is pre-approval first given by Korean immigration authorities. If it gets delayed here, visa issuance at overseas Korean missions also gets delayed, so the whole actual entry schedule gets pushed back.
Step 5: Get the visa at an overseas Korean mission and enter Korea
Based on the Certificate for Confirmation of Visa Issuance, you receive the actual visa at a Korean mission overseas. Simply put, the confirmation certificate means 'passed review in Korea,' and the visa is 'the final entry document received overseas.'
Step 6: After education and Alien Registration, workers are assigned to farms
You do not go straight to the field right after entering Korea. Only after getting daily life guidance, education, Alien Registration, bank account opening, and in some regions even inspections, can you start work at the site.
The Certificate for Confirmation of Visa Issuance and the visa were not the same thing
They may look similar, but their roles are different. You need to know this difference to understand why the document backlog is reported as such a big issue.
| Category | Certificate for Confirmation of Visa Issuance | |
|---|---|---|
| Who issues it | Korean immigration authorities | |
Visa Overseas Korean missions | ||
| When is it needed | Pre-approval needed before applying for a visa | |
| Main function | Lets you pass the review inside Korea first | |
| If this gets delayed | all the next steps get delayed together | |
| What it means in real life | Not just one document, but the starting line of the whole schedule | |
How did we end up in the era of 100K seasonal workers?
This system did not suddenly grow big. As the labor shortage in rural areas kept building up, a small pilot system grew into a key policy in just a few years.
2015: The system started for the first time
A separate system was made to fill the short-term labor shortage that gathers during the busy farming season and fishing season. It was a tool to cover the gap that long-term employment centered systems could not handle.
First half of 2019: it was still a scale of 2,597 people
2,597 people were assigned to 41 local governments across the country. Compared with the numbers now, it looks small, but you can say this was already the starting line for nationwide expansion.
2020: The visa system became more flexible
It became possible to choose and operate C-4 (90 days) and E-8 (5 months) status depending on local conditions. This was when the system started changing from a test stage into a real field-ready system.
2023: The numbers grew explosively
In the first half alone, 46 thousand people were assigned, and 16 thousand more were added in the second half. Since this passed the full previous year total of 36 thousand in just half a year, you can see how much field dependence grew.
2023~2024: Public operation and longer stay period were added
Public seasonal work where Nonghyup and others hire and manage workers grew bigger, and the stay period also increased to up to 8 months. Now it is not just about bringing people in simply, but a stage where the operating system also grew together.
2026: In the end, it became the era of assigning 109 thousand people
In 2025, including the extra assignment in the second half, the total yearly assignment grew to about 95,700 people, and then the 2026 assignment was presented as up to 109 thousand people. So the 100 thousand level was officially set in 2026, and even right before that, in 2025, it had already almost reached the doorstep.
This system is a necessary solution, but it does not end with only that
At real work sites, it is hard to hold on without it, but even if you only increase this, the problem does not end. This system has both feelings at the same time.
| Item | Why is it necessary? | |
|---|---|---|
| Immediate effect | It helps you not miss the harvest and planting time | |
Why are the limits also clear? It cannot change rural aging itself. | ||
| How farmers feel | Many say it is much better than having no workers at all. | |
| How it is run | The public seasonal work program reduces the burden on small farms. | |
| System expansion | In 2024, 8ten thousand6,648 people were assigned, and 5ten thousand9,363 people had entered by the end of August, so it has already become a major pillar. | |
| Long-term solution | It is very useful for putting out the urgent fire right now. | |
So if this news repeats every year, what should we question?
There is a reason why articles like this make you feel stuffy every time. If words like 'fast processing,' 'one-stop support,' and 'backlog relief' keep repeating around the same time every year, it may be a sign that this is not a one-time administrative mistake, but that the system is always chasing seasonal demand.
Of course, processing things quickly right now is really necessary. Farms and local governments are actually relying on that speed, and foreign seasonal workers also match their life plans to that schedule. But if you take one more step and look at the core of the news, the issue is closer to why demand on this large scale gathers at the same time every time, and why the administration, housing, and training systems needed to handle it are still being strengthened rather than 'how many documents are delayed.'
So the next time you see similar news, you can read it like this. Do not stop at 'they will process it quickly again this time.' You also need to look at rural aging, the shortage of local workers, the expansion of public operations, and the repeated bottlenecks behind it. Then you can see more clearly why this news is not just simple administrative news in rural Korea, but a story directly connected to the anxiety of one year's farming.
Do not only look at the number of backlogged cases. Check how well the actual entry timing matches the busy farming season schedule.
Along with the increase in assigned workers, it is also important to see whether management infrastructure like public operations, housing, and education is growing too.
If the same problem keeps repeating, think first about a structural bottleneck rather than a simple mistake.
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