• Korea Trade Review
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• v.47 no.5
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• pp.241-251
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• 2022

As a 4th industrial revolution technology, robots are changing the form of labor market and trade in Korea. In the future, changes in the international trade order are expected to move in the direction of shortening global supply chains and restricting trade between countries. Accordingly, reshoring of relocating overseas production facilities to Korea or near-shoring of relocating overseas production facilities to neighboring allies may expand. In this context, this study analyzed the impact of robot introduction on the domestic labor market and trade based on firm-level data. As a result of analysis based on the 'business activity data' accumulated from 2017 to 2019, the introduction of robot technology was analyzed to expand low-wage, low-skilled employment. Analysis on trade shows that the introduction of robots decreases exports and increases imports. In order to expand exports through the technology of the 4th industrial revolution, employment expansion and robot introduction should occur at the same time, rather than replacing the labor force with robots. In addition, it is thought that reshoring's goal of risk management can be achieved when a stable supply chain for imports of raw materials or essential goods, which are difficult to transfer to Korea, is established together.

• International Area Studies Review
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.85-119
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• 2018

This paper investigates the effects of exchange rate and labor skill composition on Vietnam's trade balance with her twenty main trading partners. Using balanced panel data from 2000 to 2016, the authors analyze Vietnam's total trade balance and the trade balance which is disaggregated based on labor skill sophistication. Three main findings are presented. Firstly, exchange rate has a positive effect on Vietnam's trade balance, but the small value of estimated coefficient indicates that its effect is limited. Secondly, Vietnam's trade balance of the high labor-skill produced and medium-skill white collar labor-produced goods is worsened when VND (Vietnamese Dong) depreciates. Thirdly, moving up the labor skill ladder and promoting the none-price competitiveness of the high labor-skill produced and medium-skilled white collar labor-produced goods can improve Vietnam's total trade balance, while promoting the low-skill labor-produced and medium-skill blue collar-labor produced goods can no longer contribute to Vietnam's total trade balance.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.257-287
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• 2005

The purpose of this paper is to develop a desirable government policy for attracting highly skilled professional foreign human resources. To achieve the purpose, following research methods were pursued; 1) a review on the current status of government policy on highly qualified foreign professionals, 2) case studies on foreign governments' policy on the issue, 3) a survey over Korean firms which are employing foreign high-tech professionals. Based on above research results, policy suggestions for the Korean government are recommended as follows: formulating a basic framework of the government policy to attract foreign high-tech professionals, revising the nonimmigrant visa policy for foreign professionals, collecting and distributing personnel data of foreign applicants for jobs In Korea, developing external and internal public relations, revising the method of supporting small and medium-sized firms, taking a systematic approach to attract korean-American scientists, redesigning sponsorship programs for inviting world famous scholars and scientists, increasing global joint research projects, facilitating favorable infrastructure for foreign engineers and scientists.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2022.06a
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• pp.370-374
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• 2022

Construction is a labor-intensive industry that heavily relies on skilled construction workers. However, the aging of the workforce is rapidly growing, and the shortage of skilled workers is intensifying. The application of construction robotics technology can solve the problem of workforce shortage and guarantee construction productivity, safety, and quality improvement. This study presents a framework of the functional analysis for construction processes and work tasks that classifies and analyzes processes and work tasks for construction robotics design. The framework presents the functional analysis process, which analyzes workers' attributes and identifies functions of construction robotics.

• Journal of Korean Port Research
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.35-55
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• 1989

Today, about 99% of total import and export cargo in Korea is being transported through the port. The general trends of cargo handling show increases in capacity and speed, In order to cope with these trends, it is not only required to raise the efficiencies of port operation and function but also necessary to decide the optimal amount of the skilled labor force for cargo handling in the port. Cargo handling in the port is basically relied on the cargo handling facilities. Therefore, it is very important to reserve the amount of labor force for cargo handling system has been developed up to a certain level but the personnel management system which is the superior structure has not been followed well. In this study, therefore, we show a method to determine the required amount of labor force for cargo handling considering the amount of cargo and type of cargo handling work per each cargo, and the optimal amount labor force in cope with the fluctuation of the basic cargo handling labor force with respect to the time of in and out cargo flow in the viewpoint of minimizing the expences due to reservation of extra labor force than needed and firing employment of labor force using the Dynamic Programming. The derived algorithm is introduced into the computer simulation for Pusan port with the analyzed real data such as amount of cargo handling in the port with respect to working hour, cargo capacity, working step, the ratio of cargo handling facility and actual number of workers and we estimated the required labor force. As a result of analysis the labor force of Pusan port showed the over-employment such as maximum 21.4%, minimum 8.2% when we assumed that the averages of actual working hours and days were 8 hours in a day and 20 day in a month.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.28 no.11
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• pp.181-190
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• 2023

In this paper is a descriptive survey research to compare correlations among the job stress, job satisfaction, emotional labor, and turnover intention of nurses between the comprehensive nursing care service and general wards. The subjects include total 185 nurses that consisted of 93 nurses at the comprehensive nursing care service ward and 92 at the General Ward. Results of this study are as follows; The study analyzed correlations among the job stress, job satisfaction, emotional labor, and turnover intention of nurses at the comprehensive nursing care service and general wards and found that both the groups showed significant positive correlations between job stress and emotional labor, between job stress and turnover intention, and between emotional labor and turnover intention, which indicates that higher job stress led to higher emotional labor and that higher job stress and emotional labor led to higher turnover intention. These findings raise a need to increase the manpower standard, offer proper rewards, and improve the work environment and treatment for nurses, who play the pivotal roles at the hospital organization, to solve their increased job stress and emotional labor issues and ultimately ensure the successful expansion of the comprehensive nursing care service system. There should be multifaceted efforts to reduce the turnover of skilled nurses that are capable of providing quality nursing service.

• The Journal of Fisheries Business Administration
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• v.54 no.1
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• pp.1-22
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• 2023

With the restriction of foreigners' entry into Korea due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the fishery industry faced significant challenges in supplying migrant workers. In response to this, there is growing interest in methods that could facilitate the stable employment of migrant workers. This paper investigates whether the current system used for the employment of migrant workers in the fishery industry, which is highly dependent on them, adequately performs its function of providing a stable and skilled workforce amid the intensified labor shortage resulting from decreasing numbers of households with employment in the fishery and the aging Korean fishermen. To this end, past studies and government documents pertaining to the current system were analyzed, and a survey targeting the owners of offshore fishing boats that employ migrant workers was conducted. A total of 147 owners of fishing boats responded to the survey, and the data of 499 migrant workers employed by them were used for the analysis. The analysis indicated that the migrant fishermen had difficulty in acquiring minimum scores for the change of visa status according to the criteria for the Skilled Worker Points System. Furthermore, distinct differences were found between the characteristics and working conditions of migrant workers employed through the Employment Permit System (EPS) and the Foreign Seamen System. Based on this result, this paper suggests the reorganization of the skilled migrant worker system in the fishery industry and the expansion of the regional specialized visa pilot project.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.55-70
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• 2001

This research is to analyze spatial characteristics of labor process at the labor properties in footwear industries in Busan Metropolitan area. The production process of a footwear industry is mainly composed of the development and production of goods and design, the development of component parts and materials and the assembly of parts to be end products, and the marketing. Each process inclines to concentrate in a region having the needed labor; therefore, a manufacturing factory for each process attempts to be located at the different places. The critical core functions such as the development of products and design, the development and production of critical component parts and material, and the marketing are carried out by manufacturing companies with the trademark of the products. These functions intend to be located in the Sasang industrial complex in Busan city and Seoul metropolitan area. The function such as the development and production of major component parts and materials needs high skilled technicians and well trained laborer, and inclines to be located in traditional footwear industrial regions. The assembling process is carried out by skilled females and/or unskilled labors, and attempt to be accompanied with critical core functions or outsourcing. This process has been spatially concentrated in the traditional footwear industrial areas; but recently it extends to the developing countries. The development and production of materials and the production of component parts mainly depending on male labors incline to be located in the developed countries for critical core component parts and materials, and to be located in Busan for major components parts and materials. The production of standardized components parts and materials are carried out in the less developed countries.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.491-498
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• 1998

Transplanting process during the tissue culture of potato seedlings is costly, since the cost of highly skilled labor working in the sanitary environment takes up about 60-70% of the production cost. The objective of this study was to develop a soft gripper of a transplanting robot system for the labor-saving tissue culture. The prototype of the soft gripper was consisted of power-transmitting part finger and plant contacts. The power transmitting part transformed the rotating motion of a step motor to the reciprocating motion of the finger. Plant stems used in the test were potato seedlings cultured for six weeks. The dimensional characteristics of cultured seedlings, the compressive strengths of the stems, the extractive force from the culture medium and the gripping force of the finger were measured. A proper gripping force was found to be 0.343N at the extractive force of 0.41N when the plant contacts were made of silicon. Sixteen plants out of 70 trials were tangled with others, resulting in the success rate of 77.1%.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.119-148
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• 2007

Foreign outsourcing, otherwise known as off-shoring, has become a matter of intense public debate and great concern in both developed countries and developing countries. Yet, there is a lack of good data on foreign outsourcing since the early 1990's. This paper presents updated measures of foreign outsourcing for the recent period. Its main findings are that the share of foreign-sourced goods in total manufactured inputs almost doubled-from 12.4 percent to 22.7 percent between 1987 and 2003. I then look at the relationship between the measure of foreign outsourcing activity and wages in US manufacturing industries in recent years from 1998 to 2003. The results show that for all workers, the outsourcing level is statistically significantly and negatively associated with industry wage premiums. The estimate suggests that a magnitude of 0.9 - a 9% decrease in industry wage premiums tends to accompany a 10% increase in industry outsourcing level. Outsourcing has a bigger effect on the less-skilled workers-industry outsourcing level increases by 10% and industry wage premiums decrease by about 11% in the case of less-skilled workers.