Category: Business

South Korea has promised to help “Make American Shipbuilding Great Again,” pitching its world-leading shipyards to President Donald Trump as a model to revive U.S. manufacturing and create desirable blue-collar jobs. But in reality, the sector is reliant on low-paid migrants and plagued by a high accident rate. Shipbuilding is among the country’s most dangerous industries, killing dozens of people each year, prompting more South Korean workers to shun those jobs — a growing problem for Lee Jae Myung, the nation’s leader.

“If we bring in foreign workers on around 2.2 million won ($1,500) a month to fill shipyard jobs, we have to ask what happens to domestic employment, and whether that truly helps the long-term development of the industry,” Lee said at a cabinet meeting Tuesday.

At first glance, the country’s shipyards are formidable: fast, cheap, and relentlessly efficient. Seoul made the industry an integral part of a $350 billion trade agreement with the U.S., and has also sought to leverage it into contracts for military vessels and permission to build nuclear-powered submarines. Yet a closer look reveals a more complicated picture. South Korea’s occupational fatality rate is almost 4 deaths per 100,000 workers, vs. an OECD average of roughly 3, according to International Labour Organization data compiled by Bloomberg. Risks are especially acute in shipbuilding, where the fatality rate in 2024 was more than four times the national average, government data showed.

The safety record helps explain why many skilled Korean workers have deserted the yards. To keep up production as big orders roll in, shipbuilders have turned to foreign workers, often using layers of subcontracting to keep costs low.

As of April 2025, more than 23,000 migrant workers hold the main work visas used in South Korea’s shipyards, industry data shows. The government has repeatedly eased strict quotas, now allowing foreigners to make up as much as 30% of the workforce in certain skilled shipbuilding roles — one of the highest rates of any sector. The data point to a central contradiction: The productivity Washington admires is sustained by jobs many Koreans no longer take, filled instead by workers with far fewer options to refuse them. This sits uneasily with Seoul’s $150 billion pledge to support a revival of U.S. shipbuilding and U.S. manufacturing jobs.

Modern servitude

“What worries me most is that we’re exporting a shipbuilding model whose reality is barely sustainable at home,” said Kim Hyunjoo, head of the Ulsan Migrant Center. “If this industry is being kept afloat by highly constrained foreign labor, it’s hard to see how that model can simply be transplanted to the U.S., where regulations and scrutiny are far stricter.”

Three years ago, while working at a shipyard in Ulsan, a sudden blast from a high-pressure spray machine knocked Sri Lankan worker Aslam Hassan to the ground, shattering his protective gear and shooting toxic paint into both eyes.

“As I fell, I thought, ‘So this is how I die, without even seeing my baby,’” said Hassan, who was working as a subcontractor at the time. His vision never fully recovered.

His experience reflects the dangerous conditions that underpin South Korea’s shipbuilding efficiency. Government data show nonaffiliated workers, including subcontracted and dispatched labor, make up about 63% of shipbuilding employment, far above the economy-wide average of roughly 16%.

“When you look closely at migrant worker visas, it feels like they were designed to create a kind of modern servitude,” said Hassan, who now works for an auto parts company after his injury. “During the contract period, we can’t move even in unfair conditions.”

Safety rules are enforced more strictly during regular shifts for directly employed workers, one migrant worker told Bloomberg News, asking not to be identified as he’s not authorized to speak publicly. More hazardous tasks are often pushed to subcontractors, who are called in early, late, or overnight, when oversight is looser.

Demand is growing as the industry enjoys a new boom that puts further strains on its workforce. Fresh orders last year reached nearly $36 billion for HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering Co., Hanwha Ocean Co., and Samsung Heavy Industries Co., accounting for about 20% of global new ship orders by volume, according to SK Securities.

Shipbuilding ties have also bolstered Seoul’s security goals. President Lee has received Trump’s conditional approval to pursue nuclear-powered submarines, a long-standing ambition. But the growing strategic role has raised the stakes.

Tensions have also become more acute in recent weeks, with Trump warning that the U.S. could again raise tariffs on South Korean goods, citing frustration over what he sees as slow or uneven follow-through on trade commitments. The threat has pushed senior officials back to Washington to explain delays and reassert Seoul’s promises.

Further straining ties is South Korea’s probe into a massive data breach at Coupang Inc., the Seattle-headquartered e-commerce firm known as the “Amazon of South Korea.” Vice President JD Vance has framed Seoul’s actions as an assault on the U.S. tech sector.

With the trade deal still very much up in the air, shipbuilding — as one of the highest-profile deliverables — is under the microscope. And any failure to deliver what has been promised could derail the entire agreement.

Ignoring rights

The sector’s heavy reliance on migrant workers on restrictive contracts is also likely to pose problems in any wholesale export of the model stateside, experts say. South Korea is painfully aware of Trump’s anti-immigrant drive after Hyundai and LG workers were detained in a massive Immigration and Customs Enforcement sweep at a battery plant in Georgia last year, just weeks after Lee first met Trump.

In the shipyards, many South Korean companies rely on a visa regime that binds overseas workers to a single employer, limiting their ability to change jobs, experts say. Sri Lankan welder Manoj Wijesekara paid a broker about 20 million won to secure a skilled-worker visa and a job at HD Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., hoping the move would allow him to support his two children.

When the pay turned out to be far lower than expected, Wijesekara resigned — only to discover that his visa effectively tied him to HD Hyundai, leaving him unemployed and at risk of deportation. He says the company misled him. The company says he resigned of his own accord. The dispute is pending before South Korea’s National Labor Relations Commission.

“I am terrified to speak out for fear of being deported,” said Wijesekara, who missed his mother’s funeral in November but said he was determined to hold his former employer to account. “People tell me it’s foolish to fight a company this big.”

But this broken labor model doesn’t just hurt migrant workers, said Kim Doona of Korean Lawyers for Public Interest and Human Rights, if it continues “it will hurt Korean shipbuilders.”

“Ignoring labor rights in an industry built on high-skilled work ultimately weakens global competitiveness,” she said. “Once companies fall short of international human rights standards and domestic labor laws, that risk can weigh on exports.”

After years of working as a recruiter, Justin Kirkwood landed in tech, eventually becoming a technical project manager for a vendor inside Meta’s Seattle campus. He had clawed his way into the industry with an associate’s degree, getting to work with some of the brightest people in tech in a role he thought was secure.

But his perception shifted when the social media giant laid off 11,000 employees in one day in 2022, his first year working there. When he got his pink slip last month, he says grief set in, then denial and anger. He half-jokingly entertained the idea that he might become a cobbler or hot dog vendor.

The tech industry, once viewed as prestigious and safe, has become tumultuous, with some economists even warning of a looming recession in jobs. While tech companies continue to invest billions of dollars into AI, they’re slashing jobs while touting AI-forward strategies and leaner organizations. People who pursued careers in the tech industry expected big salaries, job security, and an abundance of opportunity that would take them to retirement. But now, as tech companies continue to shed jobs, workers are shifting their expectations even with an AI boom.

“My perception of [tech] as the most viable path to job stability has definitely waned,” Kirkwood, 47, said. “Is a constant soul-crushing ambient anxiety a stage of grief?”

The layoffs continued to trickle in. In January Amazon announced that it cut 16,000 roles — in addition to 14,000 cuts it announced in October — as it aims to reduce bureaucracy and get rid of some layers of management. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post.) Pinterest also announced layoffs, stating it would cut 15% of staff in pursuit of its “AI-forward strategy.” Meta cut more than 1,000 workers earlier this year while Microsoft announced that it was slashing 15,000 jobs last year.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on an earnings call recently that AI would “dramatically change the way that we work” this year, as Meta invests in AI tools to help workers be more productive, noting that it would be need to “flatten” teams. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy had warned employees in June that cuts were coming, attributing the reductions to efficiencies created by the company’s use of AI.

The layoffs come as the U.S. economy shows signs of growth. The Federal Reserve opted to hold interest rates steady in January noting that “economic activity has been expanding at a solid pace” and the unemployment rate shows “signs of stabilization.” The unemployment rate is near historic lows at 4.3% but the labor market has largely been frozen, leaving those who are employed “clinging to their jobs,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at KPMG.

Unlike the dot-com boom of the 90s, the AI boom is not creating a major influx of new jobs because AI brings the promise of efficiency, she said. Meanwhile, tech companies are feeling financial pressure as they continue their costly build-out of data centers to support their AI ambitions.

“Over time, AI could be a productivity miracle … but in the near term we have to deal with the transition cost,” she said.

Amazon says AI is not the reason behind the reductions but rather to drive speed and ownership for invention and collaboration. Microsoft has said that even as it cuts, it’s continuing to hire and invest in strategic areas, though it did not provide specifics. Meta declined to comment.

Daniel Keum, an associate professor at Columbia Business School who researches labor market policy said the massive cuts in the tech industry are likely driven by a mix of restructuring around AI as well as the winding down of projects that companies pursued while rapidly expanding during the height of the pandemic.

“Everybody is realizing the need to be quicker and more agile,” he said. “You can do things a lot faster now.”

No more job security

Tech workers who’ve been in the industry for decades say the current period feels like a moment of transformation — one that’s reduced job security.

Six years ago, the thought of Amazon making massive cuts was unthinkable, said Fintan Palmer, a former Amazon senior software engineer who got his layoff notice in October. But in the past few years, tech companies have become less of a “safe harbor,” often hurting junior employees the most as they don’t have the network or skills to easily move on, he said.

“It’s both a really exciting and really scary time to be in tech,” said Palmer, who added that he’s felt like he’s spent the past six weeks working harder than in the past six months to solidify a new job through networking. “I’m excited to see where it goes, but I’m nervous there will be damage done to people’s lives and the industry.”

The tough job market is forcing workers across industries to spend long periods unemployed. People spent an average of 24.4 weeks unemployed in December, up from 19.5 in December 2022, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. As a result, workers, even in tech, are having to tweak their job search strategies.

Brian Morales was laid off last fall from an information technology managerial post at the Kroger supermarket chain. The 55-year-old lamented what felt like his inability to break through AI screening of job applications — until he started to tactically use AI to outgun the filters.

Morales went through AI certification programs to brush up his resume and is using ChatGPT to tailor outreach messages to potential employers. He says he’s getting more traction now but is feeling the pressure to land a job to support his wife and three children.

“It’s a lot of work compared to when I was last looking for a new role,” he said. “It’s very, very different.”

Steven Stark, a 32-year-old data scientist in Ann Arbor, Mich., who recently lost his job for the second time in a year, said that he’s had to hone his LinkedIn strategies to try to catch the eye of potential employers. He’s spent years relentlessly posting on the professional networking site to build a following, which he says translates into more people now seeing his job-hunting posts.

While another job search feels a little exciting, it’s also odd. “Most days blend together and feel the same now,” Stark said.

For younger people entering the industry, the challenges in landing a job appear even more pronounced.

A frustrating job search has made 24-year-old Frank Uribe-Medina wonder why he gravitated to technology work in the first place. Uribe-Medina’s employer told people after Christmas that it’s relocating jobs from the Los Angeles area to Virginia. Since then, he’s applied to nearly 150 openings without landing an interview.

Uribe-Medina taught himself software development and put himself through a degree program following advice that if he learned to code, he’d always have a job.

“Well, I’m looking for a job,” he said. “It feels like a big lie.”

For those still employed, the mood isn’t much different, with many worrying about when the ax will hit them as layoffs continue.

“It’s tense,” said a program manager at Microsoft, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of professional retribution. “I’m doing everything I can to avoid the pink slip with very little confidence that I can. I feel like so much of this is out of my hands.”

Internally, leaders are overhyping the capabilities and efficiencies of AI as they cut head counts and leave remaining staff to pick up the slack, he said. Meanwhile, they’re raising the bar on expectations. People are less likely to take bold stances, “terrified” of taking big risks and cautious about voicing concerns, especially as they relate to the use of AI, he said.

“The concern is if you say anything negative about AI, it’s death for your career,” he said.

Microsoft declined to comment on the AI initiatives.

Meta workers are also turning to Blind, an app that gives users with a company email access to a private and anonymous message board, to speculate about the company’s future workforce. In one message entitled “Mark wants to flatten teams,” a worker wrote “it’s been very clear in the earnings call that there may be massacres soon,” according to copies of the messages viewed by the Washington Post. Another commented that “managers will all be asked to become [individual contributors]. Anyone who can’t perform as an IC will be let go.”

Meta declined to comment on the posts.

The Microsoft worker said he gets inundated by inquiries from jobseekers, often young people trying to make their way in or industry veterans who lost their jobs. But he’s no longer convinced the tech industry is a safe place to build a career.

Kirkwood says while the job hunt has been “brutal,” he’s landed a few interviews after applying to more than 100 jobs. But he expects to have contingency plans the next time around.

“I won’t take employment for granted anymore,” he said. “You have to keep multiple irons in the fire at this point because you never know when the carpet will get pulled out from under you.”