The blockchain industry is struggling with a growing manpower shortage amid speculation that the Korean government is not likely to announce its guidelines on initial coin offerings (ICOs) within this year.

According to industry sources, 112 Japanese companies visited Korea earlier this month to fill 700 vacant positions. More than 7,000 jobseekers flooded the job fair at the time. What’s notable is not the number of visitors to the fair but the number of IT manpower Japanese firms recruited in Korea. Conspicuous among other companies were Rakuten that acquired a crypto exchange in September and SoftBank that had announced a plan to release a blockchain-based mobile settlement service, which hired 10 and nine, respectively. Japan’s internet giant GMO Group, which is eager to spur its blockchain business, recruited six, all developers.

Chinese companies are also looking at the Korean blockchain industry recently to scout talent, emerging from their drive to sneak top-level manpower out of semiconductor and display makers here offering six-digit annual salaries.

Industry officials accuse the government of hampering the inflow of talented people into the blockchain industry by verbally banning ICOs, which play the key role in promoting the blockchain industry, without statutory rules and orders. They also frown at the government’s plan to directly nurture blockchain manpower through 2022. The criticism is that the government had better draw up good policies that could attract talent to the blockchain sector instead of trying to foster manpower directly. “Even the few experts here have no other alternative but to go abroad because of the ICO ban,” said In Ho, head of Korea University’s Blockchain Research Institute, adding that talented people can’t stay in Korea as things stand now. Chain Partners CEO Pyo Chul-min sympathized with In, saying, “It’s difficult to expect the emergence of key players as only a few blockchain companies are able to thrive in the current situation.”
/Janice Yunji Kim Reporter yjk@decenter.kr

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yjk@decenter.kr