IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/aaea26/404598.html

Do Seasonal Worker Programs Meet Farm Labor Needs? Evidence from South Korea's Agricultural Sector

Author

Listed:
  • Hwang, Jeongha
  • Kim, Kwansoo

Abstract

Agricultural labor demand is seasonal and heterogeneous, so foreign worker programs may depend on both program scale and design. This paper studies South Korea’s Seasonal Worker Program (SWP) and Public Seasonal Worker Program (PSWP), which differ in employment structure: the SWP relies on direct multimonth employment by farms, while the PSWP assigns workers to farms on a daily basis through local cooperative offices. Using confidential MAFRA farm labor survey microdata, we estimate disequilibrium models for foreign temporary and daily workers. Results suggest that foreign and domestic workers are closer substitutes within the same employment-duration category, while temporary and daily workers may serve complementary roles. We then convert predicted labor-day demand into worker-placement equivalents and compare them with approved program positions. Predicted demand exceeds approved positions under both programs, suggesting the need to consider both program scale and program mix.

Suggested Citation

  • Hwang, Jeongha & Kim, Kwansoo, 2026. "Do Seasonal Worker Programs Meet Farm Labor Needs? Evidence from South Korea's Agricultural Sector," 2026 Annual Meeting, July 26 - 28, 2026, Kansas City, Missouri 404598, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:aaea26:404598
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.404598
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/404598/files/177588_197734_115232_2026_AAEA_draft_Jun_1.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.404598?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:aaea26:404598. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaeaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.