Foreigners are severely under-represented at all levels of government in Korea, with only five currently working in the central government, data showed Monday.

As of June this year, central government ministries and agencies had five non-Korean nationals on its payroll, down from last year’s seven, the home administration ministry data showed. The total number of public servants in the central government is over 600,000.

Foreign employees of 16 large municipal and provincial governments stood at 36, also down from last year’s 43. Seoul has the most number of foreign staff at 13, followed by Busan at 6, Gyeonggi at 5, and North Gyeongsang Province at 4. Of the 16 cities and provinces, six had no expat employees.

Foreigners make up 3 percent of the country’s total population.

The number of foreign residents in Korea is close to 1.4 million. Some 790,000 of them work, taking up 3.2 percent of the total workforce.

“Hiring foreign nationals is a complicated process and even when they are hired, they don’t work long here. Many go back to their country after some time,” an unidentified government official was quoted as saying by Yonhap News Agency.

By Lee Sun-young (milaya@heraldcorp.com)