Foreign nationals represented 9.3% of the workforce at HD Hyundai Heavy Industries in 2025, with Vietnamese employees accounting for more than half of the company’s overseas personnel.
The shipbuilder employed 1,752 foreign executives and workers, according to sustainability report data cited on 8 July. Vietnamese nationals formed the largest group at 916, or 52.3% of the foreign workforce. Sri Lanka followed with 412 workers, Thailand with 218 and Indonesia with 89.
The increase comes as the company manages a substantial order backlog and continued demand for production personnel. At the end of May, HD Hyundai Heavy Industries held orders valued at $60.1 billion, equivalent to approximately 91.0 trillion won and about 5.2 years of annual sales based on the previous year’s figure.
Personnel demand also remains high in the engine and machinery business, which is maintaining full operations.
The foreign workforce has expanded rapidly in recent years. The total nearly doubled from 877 a year earlier and was 3.6 times the 493 recorded in 2023. In 2022, the company employed 18 foreign nationals, meaning the figure increased more than 97 times over three years.
The rise followed persistent shortages of skilled domestic workers after many left shipyards during the prolonged industry downturn. As shipbuilding workloads increased while skilled labor remained limited, the government and the industry eased visa requirements to expand foreign recruitment.
Ministry of Justice figures showed that the number of shipbuilding workers holding General Skilled Worker E-7-3 visas increased from 1,017 in 2022 to 13,297 in 2025, approximately 13 times the earlier level.
Other major South Korean shipbuilders have also increased their reliance on overseas workers. Foreign nationals accounted for 17.1% of the workforce at Samsung Heavy Industries, while Hanwha Ocean reported a share of 5.6%.
