The number of foreign workers within Korea reached approximately 700,000 persons as of 2009, which amounts to approximately 3% of the total employment. Such a size of labor inflow would have affected the status of native workers. But the impact has not been measured properly up to now. The implication of immigration on native workers has been a controversial issue in Korea as well as in other countries. Foreign workers complement domestic labor resources and contribute to welfare improvement and economic growth of the host country. At the same time, the inflow of foreign workers could suppress the economic status of native workers who compete with them. In Korea, some have called for larger inflow of immigration in order to relieve negative impacts of population aging. However, the argument is based on a short term view, without proper consideration for multi-dimensional and longterm consequences of the inflow of foreign workers. The effect of immigration has long been a major research agenda in immigration countries like the US, and there exists established views on the subject. This study introduces the findings and compares results from the Korean data with them. For impact assessment, this study uses an aggregate factor proportions approach, which infers the impact of foreign workers inflow by examining the impact of a supply increase of a particular labor inputs on the domestic labor market. The rationale for choosing an aggregate factor proportions approach over an impact evaluation method is that there exists no proper natural control group for an impact evaluation. The study assumes that foreign workers compete with the less-educated workers with less than high school education at the bottom 20% of the labor force. From a series of data sets from 1980 to 2008, the study estimates the elasticity of relative wage change to relative supply change between those with high school education or more and those with less as 6.25, which is about twice as large as that in the US, which implies significantly smaller effects of inflow of foreigners to natives. Considering Korea’s quick educational upgrading, it is likely that elasticity of wage movement to educational composition change of workers could have been over-estimated. Hence it is sensible to interpret the estimates as the upper bound of the actual elasticity. Given the potential chances of large immigration from the North, a conservative stance of selective migration is recommendable from a long run perspective. For integration of the immigrants and their descendents to the country, education is the most effective known policy.

1. 외국인력 및 이민 유입 현황 및 전망
　가. 외국인력 현황
　나. 이민유입 현황

2. 외국인력 및 이민 유입의 영향
　가. 저숙련 노동공급 증가의 영향
　나. 내국인과의 대체성
　다. 노동력의 상대적인 공급변화가 임금에 미치는 영향
　라. 외국인력 및 이민 유입의 임금에 대한 영향

4. 정책적 시사점