In addition to Korean restaurants, Chinese, Japanese and Western restaurants will also be able to hire foreign workers from China and 15 Southeast Asian and Central Asian countries as kitchen assistants under the Employment Permit System.

The government has finalized its plans to ease requirements for a pilot program that aims to include the restaurant industry in the EPS system. Initially, the project was to allow only Korean restaurants, and restaurants with fewer than five employees had to have at least seven years experience to apply for foreign kitchen staff.

But the government recently decided to expand the categories of restaurants and ease the required years of experience to five for restaurants with fewer than five employees, as the number of applications from Korean restaurants was low. During the application period from April 22 to May 3, only 51 restaurants and 80 foreign workers had applied.

Citizens of the following countries who are issued "nonprofessional" E-9 visas are eligible to participate as workers in the pilot program: Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, East Timor (Timor-Leste), Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

Restaurants that have been operating for over five years, regardless of the size of the business, can apply to hire workers through the program, according to the Labor Ministry.

The types of jobs will continue to be limited to kitchen assistants, who are in charge of preparing ingredients, washing dishes, transporting food and clearing away dishes.

The eligible restaurant types exclude bakeries, pizza, hamburger, chicken, kimbap and coffee shops because the demand for kitchen assistant personnel is relatively low in these establishments, the ministry said.

In addition to those in the restaurant industry, forestry and mining business owners will also be able to apply for employment permits to hire foreign workers for the first time.

The ministry will receive applications from businesses wishing to hire workers of foreign nationality from August 5 to 16 via via www.work24.go.kr or www.eps.go.kr.

Once employment permits are issued, workers will be paired with businesses starting around the end of October.