Wire · operational-macro
South Korea's hunt for 100,000 tech workers | The Straits Times
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Fusion42 · 25 July 2026 · Fusion42 review
South Korea is executing a coordinated labour-sourcing strategy to fill 100,000 semiconductor and AI worker gaps by 2040, recruiting international students through university partnerships, visa reform (K-STAR programme), and direct talent pipelines from Samsung, SK Hynix, and other conglomerates. The Study Korea 300K Project has already exceeded its 2027 target, with Vietnamese students now comprising 74.5% of South-east Asian engineering enrolees.
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◆ ◆ The Wire takeaway
If you're hiring engineers in South-east Asia, Samsung and SK Hynix just made them harder to keep: South Korea's cut the visa bureaucracy and opened direct employment paths, so your talent pipeline now competes against permanent residency and established conglomerate training programmes. The market for regional tech talent just shifted from scarcity to directed flow.
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