Unfair dismissal in Korea: what foreign workers are actually owed

6 min read

Poster for Soo House's Find Strength: Build Up Career in Korea workshop, led by HR and recruiting coach Benjamin Coach

Getting let go in Korea can feel like it happened in a language you don't speak twice over — once because the news is bad, and once because the actual Korean was moving too fast to follow. Here's the part that often gets lost in that moment: Korean labor law doesn't let an employer fire you just because they feel like it, and it gives you a real, time-limited way to push back. Most foreign residents never use it, not because they aren't covered, but because nobody hands them the clock they're racing against.

  • 3 monthsTo file for reinstatement after the dismissal takes effect — no extensions
  • 5+ employeesWorkplace size needed for full unfair-dismissal protection
  • 30 daysMinimum dismissal notice, or pay instead, at almost any workplace

What the law actually says

Article 23 of the Labor Standards Act (근로기준법) bars an employer from dismissing, suspending, transferring, or cutting the pay of an employee "without justifiable cause." Article 26 separately requires at least 30 days' notice before a dismissal, or 30 days' ordinary wages paid instead if that notice doesn't happen. Article 28 is the part most people never hear about: if you were dismissed unfairly, you can apply to a Regional Labor Relations Commission for a remedy — but only within three months of the date the dismissal actually took effect.

How to challenge an unfair dismissal in Korea: file with the Regional Labor Relations Commission within 3 months of the dismissal, the commission investigates and holds a hearing, then issues a decision ordering reinstatement or back pay. A party unhappy with the result can appeal to the central commission and then to court. File within 3 months At the Regional Labor Relations Commission Investigated & heard RLRC checks eligibility and the facts Reinstatement or back pay Your choice, if you don't want the job back Unhappy with the ruling? Appeal to the central commission, then to court.
Three months is the only hard deadline in the whole process — everything after filing runs on the commission's clock, not yours.

If the commission rules in your favor, it can order your employer to take you back, or — if you'd rather not go back to that job — order a payment equal to or greater than the wages you would have earned during the time you were out. Either way, the ruling is written and formally served, not just announced.

Are you actually covered?

The just-cause protection in Article 23 only applies to workplaces that ordinarily employ five or more people — averaged out, counting part-time and daily staff, not just whoever's on the books today. Below that headcount, your employer can let you go without a reason and you can't file with the Labor Commission over it. The 30-day notice rule in Article 26 is more forgiving: it applies almost everywhere, five employees or fifty, with the main exception being anyone who's worked there less than three months.

5+ employees

Article 23 applies in full. Your employer needs a real reason to dismiss you, and you can file for reinstatement or back pay at the Labor Relations Commission.

Under 5 employees

Article 23 doesn't apply, so the Labor Commission route is closed. The 30-day notice — or pay instead — still applies in most cases.

The one that catches people The three-month clock starts on the day the dismissal actually took effect — not the day you finally found someone who could explain the notice to you, and not the day you got around to dealing with it. If you're already close to three months out, file first and work out the details of your case after.

None of this depends on your passport. A 2006 Supreme Court ruling (대법원 2006다53627) held that Chinese workers brought in as industrial trainees were still "employees" under the Labor Standards Act, meaning severance and minimum-wage protections applied to them exactly as they would to a Korean national doing the same job. The same reasoning extends to the dismissal rules — Korean labor law protects the work, not the nationality of whoever's doing it.

The part nobody warns you about

Knowing you're covered and actually getting a fair hearing turn out to be two different problems. Lawmaker-requested data that the National Labor Relations Commission released in October 2026 showed foreign workers filed 307 unfair-dismissal and related relief applications through August of that year — but going back to 2021, only 25 of those cases received any interpretation support, and just three managed it in the first seven months of 2026 alone. The commission has no multilingual counselors on staff and, until the gap made headlines, no dedicated budget for interpretation at all.

  • 307Unfair-dismissal applications foreign workers filed through August 2026
  • 25Of those got interpretation support, counting back to 2021
  • 3How many got it in just the first seven months of 2026

A complaint went to the National Human Rights Commission of Korea over this in August 2026, and the commission has since said it will draft operating guidelines for supporting foreign applicants. That's a promise, not a fix in place yet.

Bring your own interpreter Most hearings go ahead without one provided. If your Korean isn't hearing-room-ready, bring someone who can translate in real time — a friend, a trusted coworker, or a paid interpreter — rather than finding out mid-hearing that you've missed a question that mattered.

If unpaid wages or final pay are part of your case, free legal help may also be available: the Korea Legal Aid Corporation (대한법률구조공단, 132) represents workers in wage-claim lawsuits at no cost, foreign residents included, when your average monthly wage over the three months before the dispute was under 4 million won. It's worth a call even if you're not sure you qualify.

What Soo House sees

Soo House runs "Find Strength: Build Up Career in Korea," a workshop with an HR and recruiting coach where members come with job-search questions — résumés, interview prep, how to read a Korean offer letter. Increasingly, some of those questions aren't about finding the next job at all; they're about the one that just ended without warning, and whether there's anything to do about it. The honest answer from the coach is usually the same one in this guide: that's not a career-coaching question, it's a Labor Commission one, and the three-month clock doesn't pause while you figure out who to ask. Soo House exists to connect expats and foreign residents in Korea with exactly that kind of practical, time-sensitive information — not just events and meetups, but the paperwork moments that actually decide how a year here turns out.

Your Next Hop

If you were let go and it didn't feel right, check the headcount at your workplace, mark the date the dismissal took effect, and count forward three months. If you're inside that window, file with your Regional Labor Relations Commission — and if your Korean needs backup in the hearing room, line up an interpreter before you walk in, not during.

Checked in November 2026 against the Labor Standards Act, Articles 23, 26, and 28, as translated by the Korea Legislation Research Institute; the National Labor Relations Commission's official adjudication procedure page for the filing deadline, workplace-size threshold, and appeal process; the Supreme Court's December 7, 2006 ruling, case 2006da53627, via the National Law Information Center, on labor-law protections applying regardless of nationality; Herald Business's October 15, 2026 report on interpretation support figures the National Labor Relations Commission submitted to the National Assembly; and the Seoul Metropolitan Government's guide to free legal aid for wage disputes, which confirms foreign residents are included in the Korea Legal Aid Corporation's wage-claim support. Rules, thresholds, and figures can change — confirm your own case with the Ministry of Employment and Labor's 1350 hotline or your Regional Labor Relations Commission before relying on any number here.

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