Migrant Workers, Split Labor Markets, and Racial Conflicts in South Korea’s Shipyards

Minhyoung Kang, Korea University
Taejeong Lee, Sungkonghoe University
Woosik Kim, Korean Metal Workers’ Union Research Center

This research examines the recent surge in migrant labor in South Korea’s shipbuilding industry—triggered by the boom in demand for low-carbon vessels in the 2020s—and its impact on labor market segmentation. Drawing on participant observation, archival research, and 36 in-depth interviews conducted between 2024 and 2025, the authors argue that the state and big business use new immigration policies not to recruit highly skilled talent, but to secure a flexible, low-wage workforce and to weaken established labor unions. Specifically, new "skilled" visa categories (such as the E-7-3) in Korea paradoxically promote the temporary migration of precarious workers, actively undermining long-term skill formation at shipyards. This shift has deepened a three-tiered hierarchization of the labor market: unionized native regular workers, precarious native non-regular subcontractors, and marginalized contract migrant workers. To facilitate this transition, large shipbuilding firms owned by Chaebols are utilizing automation—under the banner of "autonomous shipyards"—and the deskilling of production to replace experienced non-migrant workers with a revolving door of cheaper foreign labor, even deploying migrants to operate collaborative robots during undesirable night shifts. Furthermore, the study builds on and extends split labor market theory by highlighting a crucial divergence in how the native workforce responds to this influx. While traditional unions of native regular workers favor exclusionary policies to protect their shrinking dominance, native non-regular workers increasingly recognize migrants as peers, demonstrating an emerging potential for inclusive solidarity. Ultimately, the Korean shipbuilding industry stands at a crossroads: it faces either escalating racial conflict between native regular workers and the growing migrant workforce, or a unified, inter-racial labor movement between native non-regular and migrant workers to improve conditions for all subcontracted employees.

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 Presented in Session 54. Labor Stratification, Migration, and Political Economy