Anchor: South Korea’s immigrant population continued to grow over the past year, with more than one-point-one million foreigners currently living and working in the country. Meanwhile, international student figures have surged on the back of the popularity of K-pop, K-dramas and other aspects of Korean culture.
Rosyn Park has more.

Report: Foreign residents of South Korea 15 and older numbered one-million-692-thousand as of May, the latest national data released by the Ministry of Data and Statistics showed on Thursday.

According to the 2025 Survey on Immigrants' Living Conditions and Labor Force released by the ministry, the figure marked an eight-point-four percent increase from the previous year and the highest since it began collating related information in 2012. 

The number of foreigners working in the country stood at one-point-one-million-nine-thousand, up nine-point-eight percent year-over-year.

Those workers were primarily concentrated in mining and manufacturing, followed by the wholesale and retail, lodging and food industries. Their monthly wages averaged two million won, or roughly one-thousand-300 U.S. dollars.

In particular, the survey found that the number of employed international students increased by 23-thousand, or 71-point-eight percent, during the cited period.

Song Jun-haeng, the ministry's director of employment statistics, said various policies implemented by the central government, local governments and universities had helped attract international students, adding that their efforts seem to have worked in combination with growing global interest in Korean culture.

Chinese nationals of Korean descent took the lion’s share of 341-thousand, followed by Vietnamese citizens and other Chinese nationals.

The number of residents from Vietnam and China increased by more than 20 percent compared to the year prior. People in their 20s and 30s also account for a growing portion of the foreign population.
Rosyn Park, KBS World Radio News.