• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2023.11a
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• pp.251-252
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• 2023

Compared to other industries the construction industry experiences more casualties and property damage due to safety accidents. One of the reasons is the increasing number of foreign workers. For this reason, past studies have found that foreign workers at construction sites are more exposed to safety accidents than non-foreign workers. Nevertheless the proportion of foreign workers involved in safety accidents at construction sites is increasing, and there has been a lack of research to predict the risk of safety accidents at construction sites. Additionally, realistic safety management is lacking due to a lack of safety accident risk prediction research. Therefore, in this study, we would like to propose basic research that proposes an AI-based safety accident prediction model framework for predicting safety accidents of foreign workers at construction sites. The framework and results of this study will contribute to reducing and preventing the risk of safety accidents for foreign workers through risk prediction for safety management of foreign workers at construction sites.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.53-58
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• 2018

Background: Since the Republic of Korea became a labor-force-importing country, the number of foreign workers has increased gradually, especially in the construction industry. The main objective of this study was to examine the differences in safety perception between domestic and foreign workers at Korean construction sites. Methods: A total of 891 Korean and foreign workers were surveyed: 140 foreign and 751 Korean workers. The general characteristics and 25 factors influencing safety perception were considered in the questionnaire. Regression and correlation analyses were conducted to examine the variables of workers' safety perception. Results: Differences of nationality (F = 7.379, p < 0.001) and workplace accidents were statistically significant for both domestic (F = 1.503, p < 0.05) and foreign workers (F = 7.868, p < 0.05). In contrast, age, education, and Korean language level were significant variables only for foreign workers. Correlation coefficients of $0.428^{**}$ for Korean and 0.148 for foreign workers between two items - namely, "management's commitment to safety" and "blaming staff when they make mistakes" - support the conclusion that foreign workers do not trust management's commitment to safety, while Korean workers have confidence in these commitments. Conclusion: Foreign workers' level of safety perception should rise to the same level as Korean workers, especially in terms of obeying safety rules, safety education performance, and safety beliefs. Therefore, an improvement plan for the Korean construction industry is suggested in order to have a better safety level at construction sites with foreign workers.

• 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.

• 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 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 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 the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.96-104
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• 2012

The objective of this study is to compare on the occupational injury rate and mortality rate of all workers and foreign workers. By doing so, this study seeks to find out the improvements necessary to secure the basic safety net for foreign workers, as well as to find out the legal and institutional measures in place to make timely political intervention and protect the health of foreign workers. The status of foreign workers in Korea, their employment trends by industries, and occupational accident types and scales of Korean and foreign workers were analyzed from 2005 to 2009. Each year, foreign workers' occupational injury rate was much lower than Korea's overall occupational injury rate. But when analyzed by industry, occupational injury rate (death rate per 10,000 workers) of manufacturing industry was about 2 to 5 times higher than the overall occupational injury rate in Korea. Also, construction industry showed 3 to 16 times higher rate than the rate of overall industries. Although the death rate per 10,000 workers showed a declining yearly trend, foreign workers' occupational injury rate has the tendency to increase gradually. In particular, occupational injury rates and death rates per 10,000 workers were considerably high in the manufacturing and construction industries.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2010.05b
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• pp.95-97
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• 2010

Current trends in the Korean construction industry, including the aging of the workforce, a lack of new Korean construction workers, and an inflow of unskilled foreign labor, have caused a range of problems, including quality deterioration, reduced productivity, insufficient understanding of the function and difficulties in communication, to name a few. Yet while countermeasures to these problems should be based on accurate and diverse fundamental data, including the current status of demand and supply of domestic and foreign construction workers, the perception of construction workers, studies on these questions have, thus far, been scarce. For these reasons, this study was conducted using a questionnaire for managers and workers on construction sites, to secure fundamental data relating to construction workers. The findings of the survey showed that it is urgent to prepare measures to educate, train and foster human resources, considering the aging of the construction workforce and the lack of an inflow of new construction workers.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.175-180
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• 2021

Recently, there are lacks of construction workers, and such vacancy has been continuously increased in many construction sites. Foreign workers have been hired to fill such vacancy, but increasingly high demands for construction workers made construction companies to hire foreign workers who did not properly pass the health and safety education program. In this work, problems associated with the basic education program for occupational safety and health training, which is the first mandatory requirement for foreign workers, were evaluated to suggest applicable solutions for this program. Literature reviews and preliminary investigations were performed, and a questionnaire survey was conducted for practitioners who were in charge of safety management in various construction sites. Results from survey were analyzed to derive proper methods for improvement on basic education on occupational safety and health training program. It is believed that suggested solution from this work can make foreign workers to be more conscious about health and safety issues, so that it will eventually decrease the accident rate in construction sites.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.83-93
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• 2010

Recently there has been a trend of hiring more foreign labors in the Korean construction sites after the introduction of the government policy for foreign workers since 2007, called Employment Permit System(EPS). With the trend in the sites, the skilled and unskilled foreign workers would have become a main resource in the construction site workforce. This study aims to analyzing the effectiveness and the reality of working status for the foreign workforce. In doing so, both mail questionnaire survey and face to face interview with site managers and foreign labors in 38 apartment construction sites around Seoul region have been performed. The results of survey has been compared to the former research, which has been done for foreign labors hired under the old government policy, called Industrial Trainee System. This study found that there still exist many problems in reality of utilizing foreign workers in the sites, and proposed various recommendations for the effective use of foreign labors in the Korean construction industry.