S Korea's aerospace company recruits 50 Vietnamese workers

Korea Aerospace Industries Ltd (KAI) on Friday announced the recruitment of 50 Vietnamese workers for small and medium-sized partners through GAET, a public enterprise under the Vietnamese Ministry of National Defense.

These are the first foreign workers that KAI has trained in their home country and provided for aerospace companies in South Korea.

Last year, KAI promoted an overseas professional human resource training project related to the implementation of the E-7-3 visa policy to address the manpower shortage at small and medium-sized companies in the aerospace industry. Accordingly, it signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with GAET to train and supply human resources with aerospace expertise.

Under the MoU, 50 excellent individuals in Vietnam who hold bachelor's degrees in science and engineering and have work experience were selected and trained in both theory and practice about aircraft component manufacturing for three months at a vocational training centre set up by the Vietnamese ministry.

Starting this year, the first graduates will be sent to KAI’s partner companies as well as Korean aerospace part manufacturers like Songwol Technology, Mirae Aviation, Yulgok and S&K Aviation, where they will work on machining and assembling aircraft parts.

Song Ho-cheol, head of the KAI Operations Center, said the promotion of this project helps solve the manpower shortage for partners by making use of Vietnam's abundant human resources and infrastructure.

In the future, KAI plans to train about 100 professionals each year through Vietnam's aerospace training program.