2026 Employment Permit System (E-9) quota cut to 80,000 — the separate shipbuilding quota ends while non-capital-area hiring limits expand

On 22 December 2025 the government convened the Foreign Workforce Policy Committee, chaired by the Head of the Office for Government Policy Coordination, and confirmed the 2026 E-9 introduction and operation plan. The quota is 80,000: 70,000 allocated in advance by industry and 10,000 held as a flexible reserve for unanticipated shifts in demand. Within the 70,000, manufacturing takes 50,000 and agriculture and livestock 10,000. The government cited the fact that the surge in demand right after the pandemic has largely been met, and that vacancies in manufacturing and construction are visibly falling.

The biggest structural change is in shipbuilding. The separate shipbuilding quota, run on a temporary basis from April 2023 through 2025, has ended, so from 2026 shipbuilding is handled inside the manufacturing quota again. This does not mean shipyards can no longer use E-9 workers; it means they are allocated through manufacturing rather than from a ring-fenced pool. Recognising concerns on the ground, the government set up a shipbuilding workforce task force involving the Ministry of Employment and Labor, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Office for Government Policy Coordination to monitor the situation continuously.

Adjustments were also made to ease regional labour shortages. The additional hiring ceiling for manufacturers outside the capital region rose from 20% to 30%, and the individual cap of 50 workers that applied to companies relocating back into non-capital regions was removed. In agriculture, the facility-area threshold for grain and food crop cultivation was eased from 2,000-4,000 square metres to 1,000-4,000 square metres. The domestic care pilot will not be expanded, but existing workers get contract-renewal protections aligned with standard E-9 terms. At a related meeting the same day, total non-professional foreign workforce intake for 2026 was set at 191,000, comprising 80,000 under E-9 and 109,000 under E-8 seasonal work among others.