JAKARTA - The Philippines and South Korea have signed a new agreement to protect Filipino seasonal farm workers. 

The deal, signed on November 4, 2025, brings together several Philippine agencies, including the Departments of Agriculture, Migrant Workers, Foreign Affairs, Interior and Local Government, Justice, and the Bureau of Immigration, under a single framework for the program.

The agreement lays out clearer rules and support systems to make sure Filipino workers in Korea are treated fairly, recruited ethically, and “equipped to contribute to both nations’ agricultural growth,” said the Department of Agriculture.

The Department of Agriculture will handle training, livelihood assistance, and reintegration programs for workers returning home, while coordinating with local governments so deployments fit the country’s agricultural needs.

The agreement arrived amid growing reports of exploitation involving Filipino migrant workers in South Korea, including overwork, harassment, and abuse in both the seasonal farm work program and the country’s pilot caregiver scheme.

Filipinos in South Korea, who are some 67,000 in number, are concentrated in manufacturing, agriculture, and marriage migration, with a smaller cluster in services and professional work.

The workforce is shaped heavily by Employment Permit System (EPS) quotas and regional agricultural labor shortages.

The Philippines is among the countries that rely heavily on its migrant workers, or so-called Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs).

In 2024 alone, remittances, or parts of paychecks that these migrant workers send home to their families, contributed roughly 8.3 percent of the country’s GDP. That is about USD 38.34 billion, which mostly came from Filipinos in the United States.