US military may lay off South Korean workers at bases after funding deal expires

The US Forces Korea said a temporary funding deal to pay around 9,000 workers will expire in December and it will stop paying them until March

The US has over 28,000 troops in South Korea but wants the country to contribute more towards the cost of its presence

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US Army soldiers and tanks are seen during an exercise in Gangwon province, South Korea. The two countries have been at loggerheads over the Trump administration’s demands that South Korea pay billions of dollars more towards the cost of their presence. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 5:00pm, 16 Oct 2020Updated: 9:41pm, 16 Oct 2020

The US military will put nearly 9,000 South Korean workers on unpaid leave from April in the absence of an agreement on the sharing of costs of maintaining 28,500 US troops in South Korea, it has told the government.

The allies are at odds over how much of the cost South Korea should shoulder to accommodate US Forces Korea (USFK), a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean war that ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.

Negotiations have made little progress even after the previous deal, the Special Measures Agreement (SMA), expired at the end of 2019.

The workers, who are mostly employed at US bases, were put on unpaid leave in April, which led to a temporary agreement in June to let South Korea fund some 4,000 of them.

USFK, in an October 5 letter to the labour ministry seen by Reuters, said temporary funding would expire on December 31 and it could only pay the workers until March.

“We still face a labour funding deficit for the rest of calendar year 2021,” the US military said.