▲ Vice Labor Minister Kwon Chang-jun speaks during a meeting on the employment permit system in this Sept. 9, 2025, file photo. (Yonhap)

SEOUL, Aug. 14 (Yonhap) -- Kazakhstan has been designated as a sending country under the employment permit system (EPS) and workers from the Central Asian nation are expected to arrive starting in 2028, officials said Friday.

The government made the decision in a foreign workforce policy committee meeting presided over by Government Policy Coordination Minister Lim Ki-keun.

Kazakhstan became the 18th EPS sending nation after the Philippines, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Cambodia, China, Bangladesh, Kyrgyzstan, East Timor, Nepal, Myanmar, Laos and Tajikistan.

Kazakhstan was added to the list because the country can ensure fairness and transparency in dispatch affairs as it has a government agency dealing exclusively with such issues, and no particular problems were found with the country's workforce training facilities and other infrastructure, the officials said.

The EPS is designed to bring foreign workers transparently without private sector involvement through memorandums of understanding between South Korea and sending countries.

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