Amid ongoing debate whether South Korea should have foreign nannies, Rep. Cho Jung-hun of the minor opposition Transition Korea on Thursday repeated the idea that care providers from overseas should be paid below the local minimum wage.
During a radio with MBC on Thursday, Rep. Cho said paying low wages would reduce families' financial burden and help increase the declining birth rate, adding that more families would enjoy the nanny privilege of the high-income.
“(Foreign domestic workers) say they are willing to come (to Korea to work) if they are paid between 700,000 won ($528.5) to 1 million won per month, but the insistence that (households) should pay two or three times more (that) doesn’t benefit young married couples,” Rep. Cho said.
South Korea’s current minimum wage is 9,620 won per hour, translating into about 2.1 million won a month. This is nearly two-thirds of South Korea's average salary of 3.33 million won in 2021, according to data published by Statistics Korea, meaning it is unaffordable for many families here.
Households that have the money usually pay between 3.5 million won to 4 million won monthly for Korean live-in nannies, of which the pool is small, according to reports quoting sources knowledgeable of market rate of such services.
“There’s an official price the sending country wants when Korean people hire foreign domestic workers. It’s $420 for the Philippines, $400 for Indonesia, $370 for Sri Lanka and $330 for Myanmar,” Rep. Cho explained.
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