• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.1216-1222
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• 2005

A shortage of construction field workers has been a serious problem, both in the developed and in the developing countries. As a solution for conquering this problem, these countries import foreign laborers from nearby less-developed countries. While this contributes to lessening the labor deficiency, foreign workers are relatively inefficient in productivity and are often exposed to the cross-cultural risks due to cultural differences, communication difficulties, different work ethics and customs, etc. Despite these facts, construction firms do not well address these issues and are lagged in establishing an appropriate management strategy against it. This paper presents a practical management plan for foreign construction workers through Focus Group Interviews (FGI) and survey investigation. On this basis, this study examines the level of awareness and important managerial aspects of the issue of foreign laborers. Finally, it suggests a cross-cultural and ready-to-use practical human resource management plan for facilitating the foreign worker's productivity.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.53-63
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to grasp foreign worker's industrial safety and health state, which find out the improvement to secure the basic safety net for foreign workers. We have investigated 2,050 workers through direct interviews during the period from April 12, 2010 to May 31, 2010. And the result of analysis, foreign worker's daily average working time is 10.6 hours(40.8% workers in total work 10~12 hours), the extent of exposure to harmful and dangerous working environment is 'the position which cause pain in neck, waist, hands, shoulders, legs'(69.3%), 'repetitive hands and arms movement'(66.1%). It showed 'experience of accident damage or disease related work'(27.3%), 'never apply for industrial accident compensation' is revealed high at 73%. As a result of completing a safety health education for a year, it showed 'never educated'(40.2%), 'the institute that foreign workers have used for help and advice is the foreign worker's support center'(61.9%) Thus, hiring foreign workers in the company are small in site, the environment is too harmful and dangerous. In addition, no safety and health managers, legally blind spot located in the health and safety, because it is an urgent meet for these measures to improve.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2015.05a
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• pp.128-129
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• 2015

Domestic construction industry has seen a negative image in the sense that various accident occurs frequently. Status of construction accidents in the case of domestic workers is reduced. However, if the situation of foreign workers is increasing every year. This study aims to create high-temperature exposure standard table for foreign workers and domestic workers in the analysis through the discomfort index of fatalities and using the WBGT index for reducing fatalities foreign workers to improve the image of the construction industry.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.136-145
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• 2018

Companies that have suffered serious labor shortages are relocating their factories abroad where they can solve this problem by increasing the employment of foreign workers. Construction sites also employ foreign workers to supplement the scarce manpower, and the demand for foreign workers has been gradually increasing over time. Recently, based on discussions on whether or not to introduce foreign workers, the policy on the input of foreign workers into domestic construction sites has been shifted to exploring the actual input conditions and efficient management methods. In this study, we investigated the current status and input situation of foreign workers at the construction sites of the target area, analyzed the problems they posed from the manager's viewpoint, and derived a method of improving the utilization of foreign workers at construction sites. In order to proceed with this study, we surveyed the actual situation of the construction sites, which consisted mainly of foreign workers and domestic workers (managers), by investigating the construction sites, and conducted 1: 1 interviews to ensure the reliability of the survey. The data obtained from the survey were analyzed using the SPSS analysis program, and the response rate was analyzed for each item. As a result, various problems, such as institutional problems, communication problems, and quality deterioration due to malfunction, appeared. Therefore, this study derives an improvement plan for the efficient utilization of foreign workers by improving the institutional level related to their language education, wages and employment.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.18 no.12
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• pp.159-170
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• 2020

With increasing international labour in Korea, the perspective of foreign workers' maintenance and changes of origin while living and working overseas provides a new angle for leadership research. For the purpose to investigate the effect of leadership on the group of foreign workers, this study targeted Filipino workers in U and G city and explored whether authentic leadership predicts foreign workers' work engagement and retainment through the potential intervening effect of interpersonal trust. The empirical study utilized SPSS, and results proved that authentic leadership has no significant relationship to foreign Filipino workers' work engagement directly, but authentic leadership showed a negative effect on Filipino workers' turnover intention. The full mediation effect of interpersonal trust proves the value and importance of establishing trust relationships in retaining foreign workers.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.24 no.6_2
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• pp.781-786
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• 2021

Korean domestic workers are trend to avoid harmful and dangerous jobs calls 3D work due to the poor working conditions. Therefore, the incoming population of foreign workers is increasing to fulfill the required labor force. Mostly these foreign workers are placed in small and medium-size industries. As work that induces musculoskeletal disorders(WMSD) is equally exposed to domestic workers as well as foreign workers, this study attempted to investigate the work burdened by musculoskeletal disorders and derive improvement measures by understanding the actual conditions of the worksites of foreign workers. The result of this investigation defines that the possibility of developing musculoskeletal disorders is very high in the environment in which more than 40% of the respondents work with heavy objects and repetitive work of wrists and elbows. To prevent the symptoms of musculoskeletal disorders among foreign workers, three measures were proposed. To reduce the mandatory check-up period of WMSD under the Occupational Safety and Health Act, to revise the employment permit system, and to enhance the practical help of EPS education. Safety and health management of foreign workers is becoming an essential task not only for securing a workforce but also for the national image. Personal and economic losses at the national level should be minimized through policy support such as financial support for small and medium-sized businesses in Korea and supplementation of legal systems for the protection of foreign workers.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.248-251
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• 2008

During survey of blood lead concentration of workers who worked in lead refining industry, we found that some foreign workers showed increased blood lead level compared with that of domestic workers. The mean concentration of lead in blood for foreign workers (15%, 13 workers, mean age: 29) was 55.8 ug/dL which was over biological exposure index, while that of Korean workers (85%, 76 workers, mean age: 42) was 28.9 ug/dL. Some other biological markers of lead exposure such as ZPP and ${\delta}-ALA$ also showed elevated levels. Most of foreign workers stayed in dormitories near or in the factories that may cause to let them under the condition of 24 hours exposure of lead. The lack of safety manual on proper prevention of lead exposure in their own language for effective communication may be one of reasons of elevated blood lead concentration of foreign workers.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.227-235
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• 2015

For last decade, the number of foreign workers in all industries has been increased continuously. In the construction industry, the number of foreign workers has also increased as 80,000 persons in 2010. According to the increase of foreign workers at domestic construction sites, the frequency of construction disasters has increased as well. The safety education can be a effective solution to decrease the construction disaster. So, it is necessary to develop the appropriate education system for foreign workers. Therefore, the objective of this study is to propose a safety education model for foreign workers and to develop the prototype system. In a result of that, a new safety education model and prototype system was constructed based on the method of E-learning. The system can support for foreign workers in domestic construction sites to understand the safety education easily. And, it can also assist the safety manager to educate and manage the foreign workers efficiently.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.39-48
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• 2023

Recently, the crisis of demographic extinction is rising in Korea more than any other country, and it is difficult for industrial sites to maintain without 'foreign workers'. Industrial accidents and accident deaths of foreign workers account for 7.6% and 12.3% of the total, through an in-depth analysis of fatal accidents in the manufacturing industry, differences and similarities between fatal accidents of foreign workers and all fatal accidents were confirmed in terms of occurrence type, workplace size, length of service, employment type, etc. In this study, customized countermeasures were found.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.129-157
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• 2011

This study attempts to analyze the effect of level of education on the attitudes toward immigrants or foreign workers. More specifically, we examine whether there is significant difference in the effects of the level of education and global mind on the attitude among three East Asian countries (South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan), controlling other socio-demographic factors in relation to increase in immigrants and foreign workers. Using EASS data, we employs sequential logit model to the general attitudes toward immigrant workers into the weighted sum of transition probability within each educational level. One major finding is that there is clear and significant difference in the relationship between the level of education and the attitudes toward foreign workers among three countries. In general, while Japanese and Taiwanese tend to have more open-minded attitudes toward foreign workers as they have higher level of education, Koreans are opposite case that they are little bit more hostile toward to foreign workers with higher level of education. Especially, there is strong positive effect of education on the attitude in Taiwanese case. Another finding is that while there is strong resistance against increase in migrant population in Korea and Taiwan, Japanese respondents want current level of foreign population to remain in the similar level. Our findings imply that there is no one converging pattern of relationship between the level of education and the positive attitudes toward foreign workers which can be applied to any country. Therefore, this paper suggests that unique political, social, and cultural characteristics of each country should be considered to better understand the effect of education on the attitude toward immigrants and foreign workers. Also, we conclude that systematic comparative-demographic analyses should be utilized to provide more comprehensive picture of how difference in educational level affects the attitude toward immigrants and foreign workers.