A/HRC/4/24/Add.2 page 5 Koreans living abroad 6. The Republic of Korea is both a labour sending and a receiving country. In mid-sixties, South Koreans began migrating to the United States to study or to find a higher quality of life. In the 1970s and 1980s, millions of construction workers went to the Middle East as employees of South Korean contractors.1 Most of these workers returned home after a few years with substantial savings. Although prosperity has brought higher living standards to the Republic of Korea, a number of middle-class South Koreans still continue to immigrate to Asian and Anglophone countries such as Canada and the United States in search for a better quality of life for themselves and their children. In 2003, some 8,300 Koreans went abroad to permanently settle in a foreign country.2 According to government surveys of emigrants, the most popular destination countries are the United States (28.4 per cent), followed by China (16.8 per cent), Japan (12.6 per cent), Canada (10.0 per cent), and Australia (5.1 per cent). Family reunification provisions are the main reason for the flow to the United States, where, according to the United States Census Bureau, in 2000 there were 860,000 Koreans living in the United States. The number of South Koreans who went abroad in 2003 for education reasons - largely to the United States and China - numbered around 500,000. A. Migrant workers in the Republic of Korea 7. Migrant workers in the Republic of Korea began to arrive in late 1980s when workers from neighbouring Asian countries were attracted to the country as the rapid economic growth earned attention from the international media. 8. In the early 1990s, with labour shortages exacerbated in small and medium businesses and the presence of thousands of irregular migrant workers the Republic of Korea officially opened its doors to migrant workers. As of August 2006, at least 420,000 migrant workers - or approximately 1.5 per cent of the workforce - were believed to be working in the Republic of Korea, based on government and NGO figures.3 These workers come from China, Viet Nam, Bangladesh, Nepal, the Philippines and Indonesia among other countries. 9. Korea’s employment system for foreign workers can be divided largely into three categories, namely, the employment system for unskilled foreign workers, the employment system for highly-skilled foreign workers and the other status of sojourn with employment rights. In relation to unskilled foreign workers, the Republic of Korea is introducing the minimum number of migrant workers needed according to strict procedures to protect the employment opportunity of Korean workers and minimize distortion of the labour market. The employment programmes for unskilled foreign workers can be classified into two legal systems, the Employment Permit System (EPS) and the Industrial Trainee System (ITS). 1 www.migrationinformation.org/Profiles. 2 www.ieem.org.mo/nesca/. 3 www.csr-asia.com/upload.