Latest news with #H-2
Korea Herald
2 days ago
- Business
- Korea Herald
Insurers target Korea's 1m foreign workers with improved access
With coverage still at about 50%, foreign workers drive new insurance push As South Korea's foreign workforce surpasses 1 million, insurers are lining up products tailored to this growing but historically underserved population. With local insurance markets nearing saturation, foreign residents have become increasingly attractive as a new source of growth — launching tailored products, forming partnerships and expanding digital services. Workers make up half of Korea's 2.04 million long-term foreign residents, and financial institutions are expanding insurance offerings and streamlining access through digital platforms. A recent agreement between KB Kookmin Bank, Korea's largest commercial bank, and Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance, the nation's biggest non-life insurer, targets blue collar workers. The partnership aims to simplify access to the four types of mandatory insurance required under the government's Employment Permit System for workers on E-9 (non-professional employment) and H-2 (work-and-visit) visas. The four types are: Departure Guarantee Insurance, which serves as a severance substitute for those who complete over one year of work and return home; Wage payment guarantee insurance, covering unpaid wages in case of employer default; Return-expense insurance, which helps cover flight costs, with premiums paid by the worker and reimbursed upon verified departure; and Accident insurance, which compensates for non-work-related injuries, illness or death, supplementing Korea's industrial accident coverage. Of the four, the first two must be arranged by the employer, while the latter two are the employee's responsibility. Return-expense insurance is the only one for which the worker pays the premium directly. Although Departure Guarantee Insurance is similar to statutory severance pay, it is only payable when workers leave Korea, making it difficult to resolve disputes if the amount is less than what is owed. Recent moves such as this make it easier to monitor what has been paid in, allowing workers to check the amount in advance and take action if necessary. Starting this month, foreign workers will be able to view their Samsung Fire-provided insurance policies via KB Kookmin Bank. By the third quarter, the service will expand to include online claim filing, enabling a fully digital policy management for foreigners. This marks Samsung Fire's second partnership with a domestic bank for E-9 visa holders, following its collaboration with Hana Bank last September. Meanwhile, Woori Bank has also expanded access, allowing foreign laborers to view work-related insurance policies via its 'Woori Won Global' app. NongHyup targets seasonal workers NH NongHyup Bank — one of Korea's five largest commercial banks, with a focus on rural and agricultural finance — has also entered the space with a financial package tailored to seasonal workers on E-8 visas. Launched in June, the 'E-8 Package' is the first product under the bank's new foreign customer brand 'NH Global With.' It offers integrated services including insurance coverage in partnership with group affiliate NH Property & Casualty Insurance. The package was developed based on feedback from seasonal workers themselves, aiming to close service gaps for those who still fall through the cracks of Korea's insurance system. In a related move, NH Casualty also rolled out a specialized policy for public seasonal workers — those hired directly by municipal governments and dispatched to farms via NongHyup cooperatives. Their number, which includes non-E-8 holders reached 95,700 this year, up 40 percent on-year. The policy covers farm-related liability, early repatriation due to illness or injury, and losses from government-declared disaster zones. Foreign policyholders on the rise This wave of activity comes as the number of insured foreign residents in Korea continues to grow. As of last year, 1.03 million of them were enrolled in a plan with a local private insurance firm. That's just over half, and up from 990,000 the year before. Despite this growth, the coverage rate among foreign residents still lags far behind that of Korean nationals, which nears 90 percent. Reflecting this gap and its potential, insurance contracts held by foreign nationals in Korea grew at an average annual rate of 19 percent between 2019 and 2023, significantly outpacing the 13.2 percent growth recorded among Korean policyholders, according to the Korea Credit Information Services. To support these developments, the Financial Supervisory Service established a dedicated task force in May and launched a comprehensive review of insurance subscription trends among foreign residents. The regulatory agency requested insurers to submit data on the number of foreign policyholders and contracts from 2021 to 2024, along with measures taken to improve accessibility. The FSS also plans to roll out standardized guides in English and Chinese for each stage of the insurance process — including enrollment, maintenance and claims — in the coming month. Starting in the fourth quarter, insurers will be required to provide these multilingual guides alongside existing materials at key touchpoints.
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Miami Herald
27-03-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
Governor, Florida teens and ‘Gold Card' visas won't fix our labor deficit
When I was a teenager in Indiana, the big summer job was detasseling corn. We'd trudge up and down rows of stalks and their razor-sharp leaves, yanking one pollen flower after another. Only agronomists seemed to know its purpose. Still, it was a Hoosier rite of passage. Since then, kids have learned something important about detasseling corn: It sucks. That's why today, 80% of the work is done by machines. But detasseling is an agro-task machines can actually do. Most field work, especially harvesting fruits and vegetables, still requires manual labor. Now, ask South Florida teenagers if they'd be up for the backbreaking toil of picking tomatoes and mangoes in the Redland during their summer vacation. Ain't happenin'. Many of them today would file angry complaints with the National Labor Relations Board if their parents so much as suggested they mow the lawn. So I'll admit I chuckled when I heard Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' rationale for loosening the state's child labor laws. He thinks it will somehow reduce the need to hire the undocumented workers who so often do essential jobs that documented workers — kids or adults — won't touch with a 10-foot-long avocado pole. 'Why do we say we need to import foreigners, even import them illegally,' DeSantis mused last week, 'when, you know, teenagers … should be able to do this stuff.' Because, Governor, if we relied on U.S. adolescents to do this stuff, the ensuing labor shortfall would send the price of strawberries, poultry, hotel stays, home building or home elder care higher than a Trump tariff on Canadian bacon. I'm not making some woke declaration that undocumented labor is a good thing. Quite the contrary: I'm saying DeSantis, President Donald Trump and MAGA nativists should try brainstorming reasonable ways to document undocumented labor instead of scoring easy political points by demonizing it — or by concocting dubious plans for replacing it. The reason is simple: Labor market data confirm we face a steep workforce deficit in this country. That's especially true in Florida, where the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says there are only 53 available workers for every 100 open jobs, particularly in sectors undocumented (and taxpaying) workers help keep afloat, like agriculture, construction and hospitality. Trump's proposing more of what he calls 'Gold Card' visas to lure rich immigrants to the U.S. I'd say let's also propose more of what I'll call 'Golden Corral' visas (my shout-out to the popular, affordably-priced restaurant chain) so we can legally bring in all the blue-collar migrants we're going to need as boomers keep retiring and birthrates keep falling. We do have Golden Corral visas on the books, like the H-2 program that brings workers in on a usually temporary, seasonal basis. But we need to increase them — it's estimated we hand out only a quarter of the H2's we really require, and the red tape is onerous — and we need to gear more of them toward what those Gold Card visa recipients get: an eventual path to legal residency. That's the conclusion of even conservative immigration experts like David Bier of the libertarian Cato Institute think tank in Washington D.C. When I spoke with Bier recently about our chaotic patchwork of temporary legal immigration avenues — an ad hoc substitute for Congress' unconscionable failure to pursue real immigration reform — he said the U.S. can no longer afford to keep its blue-collar migrant workforce so inordinately undocumented. 'If you tell people there's no way to come legally, the message is sent that the only way to come is illegally,' Bier told me. 'We should instead focus on fixing the legal immigration system,' he said — starting with 'an improved worker visa system, especially year-round visas for jobs that don't require college degrees.' That, Bier added, would help create 'an immigration system that's workable for the 21st century' and the labor shortage we're confronting. If it's too recklessly fashionable on the left to say, 'Let's let everybody in,' it's too spitefully trendy on the right to say, 'Don't let anybody in.' Neither approach does us any good. What would benefit us is a more realistic system of documented migrant labor. That, and maybe persuading teenagers to mow the lawn once in a while. Tim Padgett is the Americas editor for WLRN, covering Latin America, the Caribbean and their key relationship with South Florida. Contact Tim at tpadgett@
Yahoo
17-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
NJ awards up to $104 million tax break in Nokia Bell Labs 10-story New Brunswick tower
The New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) Board has approved tax credits through the Aspire Program to support the second New Jersey Health + Life Science Exchange's (HELIX) building in New Brunswick, known as H-2. Nokia Bell Labs, the industrial research arm of Nokia, will serve as the main tenant of H-2, a 10-story, nearly 370,000-square-foot building that will be an innovation hub in the city's downtown. The first phase of the HELIX was approved for Aspire tax credits in 2023. The HELIX will bring together New Jersey's public, private and academic sectors to create a world-class hub of innovation and a strong base of support and talent pipeline for innovative companies. The HELIX campus, consisting of three separate buildings, will provide 1.5 million square feet of multifaceted, state-of-the-art environments supporting the gamut of health and life science organizations and professions. NJEDA CEO Tim Sullivan said the Aspire Program fuels catalytic development projects that transform communities into dynamic, transit-oriented hubs, ideal for living, working, and doing business. "With today's Aspire award, Nokia Bell Labs addition to the HELIX will further support New Brunswick's innovation ecosystem by creating cutting-edge technology, high-quality jobs, and long-term economic growth that will benefit generations of New Jerseyans,' he stated. More: Rutgers building $567 million new medical school, research facility in New Brunswick Last month, the NJEDA announced it will partner with Nokia Bell Labs to launch a Strategic Innovation Center (SIC) consisting of the NJ Nokia Innovation Center and Bell Labs Venture Studio, both of which will eventually be located at H-2. Both components will be focused on enabling startups to accelerate and commercialize intellectual property from Nokia Bell Labs and local universities with an emphasis in the fields of communication, artificial intelligence, cloud computing and optical and wireless networks. H-2 will be a research and development facility comprised of chemistry and biology laboratories, data centers, 3D printing areas, machine shops, office space and conference rooms. The main lobby of H-2 will include a technology showcase and a coffee shop, which will have access to the Paseo, a public outdoor space connecting the Rutgers campus, the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital District, the New Brunswick train station and the Government and Arts District in downtown New Brunswick. SJP Properties is the lead developer of H-2 and was approved for Aspire tax credits of up to 80 percent of the eligible project cost, not to exceed $103.9 million. Aspire is a place-based economic development program created under the New Jersey Economic Recovery Act of 2020 to support mixed-use, transit-oriented development with tax credits to commercial and residential real estate development projects that have financing gaps. All residential Aspire projects must include at least 20 percent affordable housing. As a performance-based program, projects must certify that all commitments established at time of approval have been met before receiving their first disbursement of tax credits. This article originally appeared on NJ awards up to $104M tax break in downtown New Brunswick development
Bloomberg
04-03-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Can Trump Deliver on His Promises? These 12 Metrics Will Tell Us
Trump has said 'I'm fine with legal immigration …. We need people.' But the question of more visas for skilled workers sparked a nasty spat among his followers in January. Moreover, the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 policy blueprint that Trump's administration has largely followed (despite his disavowals) amounts to a 'comprehensive plan to drive immigration levels to unprecedented lows,' as the Niskanen Center, a libertarian think tank, put it. The plan would use administrative measures to wind down H-2 visa categories for seasonal and non-seasonal unskilled workers, which are popular with farmers, and reduce foreign students' access to the skilled H-1B visas favored by Silicon Valley and Wall Street.
Yahoo
26-02-2025
- Yahoo
Mexican drug cartel leader extradited to the US to face federal drug trafficking charges
A Mexican drug cartel leader is facing federal charges following years of allegedly trafficking narcotics into the country to sell to American citizens. Jesus Ricardo Patron Sanchez, 39, was extradited from Mexico to face charges relating to drug trafficking in New York City, according to federal prosecutors. Sanchez went by the nicknames "Diobolical," "Xmen" and "James Bond" while allegedly working as the head of the "brutally violent" H-2 drug cartel. Trump State Department Declares Tren De Aragua, Ms-13, Mexican Drug Cartels As Foreign Terrorist Organizations The H-2 drug trafficking organization operated out of Nayarit and Sinaloa, Mexico and originated from the Sinaloa drug cartel. The head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) said last year that the U.S. is facing the "most dangerous and deadly drug crisis" in its history with fentanyl and methamphetamine flowing across the border — and that the "Sinaloa and Jalisco Cartels are at the heart of this crisis." Read On The Fox News App Police Lead Tren De Aragua Crackdowns As Exclusive Fox Nation Ride-along Exposes Venezuela's Deadliest Gang Prosecutors allege that under the direction of Sanchez, H-2 transported cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamine into the U.S. on a monthly basis from June 2013 to December 2016. The cartel used multiple distribution cells throughout the country, including New York, Las Vegas, North Carolina, Ohio and Los Angeles, to traffic "large quantities" of drugs, officials said. "As alleged in the indictment and court filings, Sanchez was one of the principal leaders of the H-2 Drug Trafficking Organization, a brutally violent transnational criminal organization that flooded American streets with dangerous drugs and protected its operations through murder and corruption," United States Attorney John Durham said. Sanchez also directed members of the cartel to kill members of other drug trafficking organizations and additional perceived rivals, according to prosecutors. To ensure the profits from their sales made their way back into Sanchez and other leaders' pockets, Sanchez allegedly worked to orchestrate a money-laundering operation to transfer funds back to Mexico from the U.S. The DEA estimates that H-2 distributed hundreds of kilograms of illicit drugs to American citizens, earning millions of dollars in revenue while committing numerous homicides from 2013 to 2017. Sanchez, a Mexican citizen, was arrested in Mexico in February 2019 on a provisional arrest warrant issued by the U.S. He was extradited to Brooklyn, New York, six years later. Click Here For More Immigration Coverage Last week, Sanchez was arraigned on charges of leading a continuing criminal enterprise, participating in a large-scale narcotics distribution conspiracy and using one or more firearms in connection with narcotic offenses. If convicted, Sanchez faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison. "Our country is facing an unprecedented drug crisis," DEA Special Agent in Charge Matthew Allen said. "Violent drug-trafficking organizations, like H-2, fueled by unrelenting and callous greed have been saturating our communities with poison, death and chronic devastation."Original article source: Mexican drug cartel leader extradited to the US to face federal drug trafficking charges
