koreans in japan

Better wages and more employment opportunities in the booming Japanese wartime industrial economy attracted a great number of Korean workers. Migration became massive in the 1930s, as 800,000 Koreans crossed over the Korean Strait between 1930 and 1940. By 1940, 1,24 million Koreans resided in Japan. More than three-quarters of these migrants were engaged in lower-end jobs in day labor, construction, unskilled factory work, and mining. Even these jobs, however, paid more than work in Korea.