SEOUL, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) -- Foreign working population in South Korea has topped 1 million, a government report showed on Thursday.
Foreigners aged over 15, who were staying in the country, reached 1.425 million as of May, up 3.7 percent from a year earlier, according to Statistics Korea.
Among them, the economically active population surpassed 1 million for the first time at 1.005 million in May, up 1.9 percent from the same month of last year.
The economically active population refers to those employed and unemployed having an age of 15 or more.
Foreigners who got a job here reached 962,000 in May, up 2.6 percent from a year ago.
The portions for Chinese and Vietnamese took up 6.6 percent and 7.4 percent respectively.
Foreigners in their 30s having a job here made up the highest portion of 29.2 percent, followed by those aged 15-29 with 26.6 percent and those in their 40s with 19.5 percent.
By industry, 45.4 percent of foreigners found a job in the mining and manufacturing industries, while 19.7 percent got a job in the wholesale, retail, restaurant and lodging sectors.
Almost half of foreigners getting a job here received an average monthly salary of 1 million to 2 million won (888-1,775 U.S. dollars), with 37.9 percent of foreign workers getting a wage of 2 million to 3 million won per month. Only 8.9 percent of foreign workers earned more than 3 million won per month.
The percentage of foreign workers to domestic employees reached 3.6 percent as of May, unchanged from the same month of last year.
