Items	EUCCK's Proposal	Comment
Residence status of family members	Recognize common law partners as family members.	Korea recognizes the legal union of individuals as a marriage. Thus, a group of people created through a common-law marriage is not recognized as a family in Korea.
Working Visas	Visa should be attached to people and not to companies so that people can more easily change organizations in Korea.	Korea has adopted an employment permit system not a work permit system. Under a work permit system, foreigners with legal sojourn status have a freedom to choose a workplace. However the employment permit system allows domestic companies to appoint foreign workers, make a contract, and employ them for a certain period.
Working Visas	The Immigration should consider applying broader visas so that the people can be more engaged within their field or the company.	If a foreigner with an employment visa wishes to engage in activities outside his/her status of sojourn, he/she can do it, under certain conditions, after obtaining an approval.
Working Visas	Ease the length of the work experience and qualification requirement. Make self-employment experience equal to regular employee experience	If a foreigner wants to obtain an E-7 visa which is aimed at foreigners who have skills in particular areas, he/she has to meet educational requirements and work experience in the area. However, work experience is not confined to employment by relevant companies.
Internships at Korean Companies	The companies should encouraged to hire interns from abroad as this would help to create a working environment and companies' culture that will be more globally competitive.	There are roughly two visa categories for foreign workers in Korea, one for skilled workers (E-1∼E-7) and the other for unskilled workers (E-9, E-10, H-2.) There is no separate visa category for internship. Internship is an employment type offered by some large or mid-sized companies. In Korea, the demand for internship visas is expected to be low. However, General Trainees(D-4) visas are available for foreign investment companies or Korean companies investing overseas to invite their employees for education or training. For your reference, Korea is willing to learn from the examples of countries with internship visa system by collecting data and reviewing them thoroughly.
Working visa requirements for English teachers	The current regulations should be reviewed and requirements for people who want to teach English should involve their qualification and their work experience. People who have English teaching experience and English language qualifications should be allowed to teach English in Korea.	Foreigners who want to teach English at private language institutes are required to have acquired at least bachelor's degree or the equivalent of such a degree in a country where English is used as a native language. On the other hand, foreigners who studied at least 2 years at a university or graduated from a 2- year college in a country where English is used as a native language, he/she can work as assistant English teachers at a primary and secondary schools.(In this case, private language institutes are excluded) Requirements for foreign English teachers in Korea were eased to include the nationals of a country which has a trade agreement (FTA, CEPA, etc that the commitment for the assistant English teachers is included) with Korea and uses English as an official language, who hold at least bachelor's degree and English teacher's license. Korea has improved its visa system to apply different requirements based on the levels of education consumers.
Living standards -Domestic Helpers	The criteria for employing foreign domestic helpers should be based on annual household income and set at 40 million KRW, in line with regulations in Singapore and Hong Kong.	Expanding employment scope of foreign domestic helpers(F-1 visa) needs to be determined with prudence factoring in domestic situation. We are examining the possibility of restrictively allowing certain visa holders to employ foreigners as a domestic helper when the necessity is recognized as part of our effort to attract highly-skilled people in the world.
Living standards - Healthcare	There should be an information centre or a helpdesk (Call-centre for English speaking foreigners, ie under MOHW) that would provide all the information needed on this subject.	Current status and future plans: We are currently in the process of establishing a medical call center for foreign patients (‘09). We are actively encouraging Korean medical institutions to provide information to foreign patients.