At 34, Fajar was already watching the clock.
He wanted to work in South Korea’s manufacturing sector, the route taken by the other three Indonesian workers in a 2025 study by Taihyeon On and Kurniawaty Iskandar. Getting there depended partly on Korean-language performance, and improving a score could mean months more preparation.
Three of the four workers in the study said they had studied Korean for between three and six months. Another, Ardi, kept studying for almost a year and eventually scored well enough to pursue manufacturing.
Fajar did not think he could afford the same wait. The researchers wrote that he worried getting older would hurt his chances in the more competitive manufacturing route. More preparation would also cost money. He still had several years before reaching South Korea’s formal EPS age ceiling, but at 34, age was already entering his calculation.
He chose fishing.
Taihyeon On, one of the researchers and now a master’s student at the Graduate School of International Studies at Seoul National University, said Fajar had told them he would have preferred to work in a factory or another sector but felt he needed to move quickly. “He had to move quickly and take whatever jobs were available at the time,” On told Migrant Times. “He said he knew the work would be hard but felt he had no alternative.”
The other interviewees did not directly raise age as a concern, On said, meaning she could not say it was a common theme in the sample. “His account suggests that an age ceiling may push workers to accept jobs they would otherwise avoid, although this is based on a single case and should be read with caution,” she said.
The choice got Fajar to Korea sooner, but into the sector he had been reluctant to take. Fajar told the researchers that he knew work at sea would be physically and mentally demanding. Once there, he said his employer beat him, shouted at him and threatened him. When he tried to transfer, the employer refused to sign the necessary papers. Fajar said the isolation of working on a vessel with only his employer also made it difficult to record the violence.
Months earlier, in Indonesia, Fajar had looked at the time and money another attempt at manufacturing could take and decided to move while he still had the chance.
Five years before 39
For Indonesia’s 2026 manufacturing and fisheries intake, EPS applicants had to be between 18 and 39 when they registered. KP2MI translated the rule into a precise birth-date window: eligible candidates had to have been born between 11 February 1986 and 10 February 2008.
HRD Korea approved 21,225 Indonesians to sit the general EPS-TOPIK examination. They were competing within final-selection quotas of 1,000 for manufacturing and another 1,000 for fisheries. Passing the Korean-language test was only one stage. Candidates were ranked within the available quota, and those who advanced faced a second-stage skills and competency assessment. The skills test covered physical strength, an interview and basic job abilities. Previous work, relevant training or qualifications could also count.
All of those assessments came after an applicant had already met the age requirement.
Even clearing them did not produce an employment contract. Successful jobseekers entered the EPS employment pool, where Korean employers made the eventual selection. KP2MI repeatedly warns candidates that passing EPS-TOPIK allows them to continue through the process; it does not guarantee employment.
For somebody in their twenties, an unsuccessful recruitment cycle may still leave years to try again. A worker approaching 40 has fewer new registration windows available. Turning 40 does not terminate an E-9 job already underway in Korea — the workforce includes people in their forties — but somebody beginning another EPS-TOPIK application still has to meet the published 18-to-39 requirement.
Fajar had not reached the ceiling. He was 34 when he decided not to spend more time chasing manufacturing and entered fishing instead. Later, on the vessel, he found himself trying to leave the job he had taken. “I had to endure, even though working at sea is very tough,” he told the researchers. “I knew the risks.”
A second chance, until 39
South Korea also has an examination specifically for people who have already spent part of their working lives there.
HRD Korea runs Special EPS-TOPIK for eligible former E-9 workers who left South Korea voluntarily within their authorised period of stay. The agency says the programme helps prevent overstaying by giving workers a reason to return home when their Korean stay expires. It also describes another purpose: supporting the “re-employment of skilled workers.”
Previous employment can directly affect what happens after the test. A worker who spent more than a year at the final workplace can qualify for designated job placement after passing Special EPS-TOPIK in the same industry. Indonesia’s 2026 registration notice likewise told workers hoping to return to a previous workplace to register in the corresponding sector.
HRD Korea approved 1,108 Indonesians to take Special EPS-TOPIK in May 2026. Every candidate had already worked in Korea on an E-9 visa. They still had to be between 18 and 39.
Migrant Times asked the Korean Embassy in Jakarta why that ceiling continued to apply to experienced former E-9 workers seeking re-employment through Special EPS-TOPIK. The embassy forwarded the questions to South Korea’s Ministry of Employment and Labor.
“The current age requirement was established in consideration of the nature of the EPS, which is designed to allow non-professional foreign workers to work in Korea for a limited period, as well as labor demand in the workplace,” the ministry told Migrant Times.
The ministry did not say why the upper limit was set specifically at 39. Its response also did not give a separate explanation for applying the same limit to Special EPS-TOPIK.
It instead pointed to another return route. “For reference, the Special Re-entry System is a separate scheme for those who have worked for an extended period at the same workplace with a satisfactory employment record and whose previous employer wishes to continue employing them,” the ministry said.
“It is separate from the re-employment scheme through the Special EPS-TOPIK.”
Korea broadened Special Re-entry in 2021 after acknowledging that the previous rules could discourage workers from changing workplaces because doing so might cost them the chance to return. Employers could also lose workers they already regarded as skilled. The reform opened the route to more workers who had changed workplaces in the same industry and shortened the required period outside Korea.
Then-Labour Minister An Kyung-duk explained the change by referring directly to employers’ demand for experience. “Considering that demand is high for skilled foreign workers who have a long experience in the industrial field,” he said.
Fourteen years later, the answer sounds familiar
In March 2011, the Philippine Embassy endorsed petitions from Filipino EPS workers and their Korean employers seeking changes to the system. By February 2012, two of those proposals had become part of a law easing the return of experienced foreign workers.
Philippine Ambassador Luis Cruz then argued that EPS should go further. According to the Philippine Embassy, the petitions had been signed by 2,355 Filipino workers and 633 Korean employers. Some of the proposals dealt with making it easier for experienced workers to return to Korea.
Filipino EPS candidates were then subject to an upper age of 38. Cruz argued that somebody could spend years becoming useful to a Korean company and then cross the line while remaining capable of doing the work. The Philippine Embassy quoted him saying such a worker “would still be physically capable to contribute his services to the company.”
A Korean Ministry of Employment and Labor official gave the embassy a rationale in 2012. According to the Philippine account, the age requirement reflected Korean companies’ demand for temporary workers and EPS’s role in supplying short-term foreign labour. The official also said changing it would require consultation with the Ministry of Justice.
Other parts of EPS later moved. The Special Re-entry rules were loosened in 2021. In December 2022, the government announced a broader overhaul after saying the basic EPS framework had continued for years while Korean industry and the country’s population structure changed around it.
One problem identified by MOEL concerned what happened after foreign workers spent years in Korean companies. Employers could invest time in workers who became skilled on the job and then struggle to retain them. The reform gave some long-serving E-9 workers better opportunities to remain and expanded vocational training for foreign employees already in Korea.
By EPS’s twentieth anniversary in 2024, the number of sending countries had grown from six to 17. The labour ministry’s anniversary material referred to supporting the “long-term stay of skilled workers.” The ordinary EPS-TOPIK eligibility page continued to list 18 to 39. Special EPS-TOPIK listed the same range.
Migrant Times asked the Korean Embassy whether the age ceiling had ever become an issue in Korea’s bilateral EPS discussions with Indonesia. The ministry said the two countries had maintained consultations over matters involving the employment and stay of foreign workers. “However, the two countries have not discussed the age limit for the EPS-TOPIK as an issue,” it said.
Migrant Times had also asked whether the threshold had been reviewed in recent years. The ministry did not say whether such a review had taken place. It did state its current position. “At present, there are no plans to review or revise this age requirement.”
The line at 39
Korean employers have historically cared about age when choosing EPS workers.
A 2014 Ministry of Employment and Labor survey later analysed by the OECD found that skills accounted for 17.4% of the characteristics employers said they considered, age for 8.3% and physical condition for 7.8%.
Age and physical condition appeared as separate preferences. EPS also assesses some of those characteristics more directly. Under the points system, skills and previous experience can count alongside Korean-language performance. In Indonesia’s 2026 intake, physical strength was examined separately and employment history could be documented.
The OECD also found that age could matter again after candidates had cleared the formal eligibility rules. Korean firms tended to choose younger workers even among people already admitted to an EPS roster subject to an upper-age limit.
The employer survey is more than a decade old and cannot establish how Korean companies recruit in 2026. MOEL did not cite a newer employer survey in its response to Migrant Times. It also did not cite physical capacity when explaining the age requirement. The ministry referred instead to workplace labour demand and EPS’s temporary design.
The OECD questioned the age rule in its 2019 review of Korea’s labour-migration system. It called the requirement one of the “paradoxes of labour migration” and recommended addressing the use of age preferences in employer selection. Its criticism was more pointed elsewhere: “countries with age-discrimination legislation for employment of resident workers apply discriminatory policy to the selection of labour migrants.”
Other migrant-worker systems draw the age line elsewhere. Malaysia generally accepts newly recruited foreign workers between 18 and 45. Singapore accepts new non-Malaysian migrant domestic-worker applicants from age 23 to below 50. The programmes are not direct equivalents of EPS. The occupations differ, as do recruitment systems and the rules workers face after arrival.
A 2025 Indonesian study of returned migrant workers recorded the experience of a man from Tulungagung who had previously worked in South Korea.
The report, backed by the Coordinating Ministry for Community Empowerment, did not give his name or age. It also did not contain enough information to establish whether one of Korea’s other return mechanisms might have been available to him.
It recorded where he still wanted to work. Translated from Indonesian, he said: “I still want to work there in South Korea, but the obstacles are my age and not having connections. For the government-to-government route, the maximum age is 39.”