[21] Eventually, most returned home or moved on to other countries, and as of 2014[update], the South Korean government's own figures showed over 24 thousand of their nationals living in the region.

[23] The growth in the South Korean migrant worker population reflected a deliberate policy of the government to promote manpower exports; they had established a special department for this purpose as early as the mid-1960s, and in the 1970s, construction enterprises were given priority in order to facilitate their entry into overseas markets.

[24] Over two dozen South Korean companies employed migrant labour, the largest such employer being Hyundai Construction; Koreans were described as having a "competitive advantage" over workers of other nationalities due to their discipline and level of skill, which some commentators attributed to South Korea's practise of universal male conscription.

[21] Wages were around four to five million won, roughly twice what could be earned in South Korea at the time, and workers typically remitted 80% of their salaries.

However, migration was not a success for everyone: roughly one-in-ten workers returned from the Middle East reported a decrease in income, usually due to inability to find suitable work.

The hot, dry climate and long work hours also resulted in health problems for many workers, and the medical bills whittled away at their savings.

Increasing labour unrest initiated by South Korean workers provided one stimulus for the localisation of the workforce.

[21] South Korea used to have an embassy in Bahrain from 1976 to 1999, but closed it in a round of cost-cutting measures after the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

However, South Korean companies continued to do business in various fields in Bahrain, including construction, heavy industry, power, desalination plants and electronic engineering.

[40] The first group of nine South Korean workers arrived in Iraq in 1975; however, until the end of 1980, only a total of 1,958 registered emigrants went to the country.

However, their numbers would increase along with the intensification of the Iran–Iraq War; from 1981 until 1985, Iraq was consistently the second to fourth-most popular Arab world destination for South Korean migrant labourers, a total of whom 66,665 went to the country during that period.

[21] In March 2003, then-president Roh Moo-hyun agreed to dispatch a contingent of ROK army engineers to Iraq.

[46] One well-known South Korean who grew up in Jordan and naturalised as a citizen there is Won Ho Chung, an Arabic-speaking comedian who rose to fame in the region through the Axis of Evil Comedy Tour in 2007.

[21][23] Koreans in Kuwait generally did not receive a welcome from or assimilate to the local society; in common with Indians, Filipinos, and Pakistanis, they were described as being at the bottom of the social structure, "ridiculed and stripped of their rights".

[51] Nor did they spend much of their money locally; as meals and housing were provided for them in their work camps, it was estimated that they remitted 80% of their earnings back to South Korea.

[54] In 2005, a group calling itself Kuwait Mujahideen claimed to have killed a Korean national as part of an attack on a US Army base in Umm Al-Hayman near Al Ahmadi.

[49][56] Air Koryo, the national airline of North Korea, began operating weekly flights between Pyongyang and Kuwait City in 2011.

South Korean official media reported that Pyongyang had explicitly ordered their nationals in Libya and Egypt not to return home.

[64] North Korean workers are reported to be among the lowest paid in the country, earning US$170/month, less than even Nepali migrants; they perform low-skilled work such as plastering and bricklaying.

[66] South Korea established diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia in 1962, and opened an embassy in Jeddah in 1973, which would later move to Riyadh.

[67] Labour relations were especially a source of friction in Saudi Arabia; one eyewitness account by an American expatriate claims that Hyundai's management called in the Saudi military to put down a strike at the Jubail port construction project, and that the army then proceeded to arrest and execute several workers.

However, by 1985, the number of South Koreans entering Saudi Arabia had fallen to 58,924, paralleling a downward trend in the whole region.

[21] Saudi Arabia's first school for South Korean nationals was established in 1992 in Jeddah; as of 2007[update], it enrolled a total of 23 children at the kindergarten level.

[71][72] The United Arab Emirates received a small contingent of Korean migrant workers in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but it was never a major destination.

3,276 lived in Dubai, 1,982 in Abu Dhabi, 141 in Sharjah, 83 in Ajman, 67 in Ras al-Khaimah, 36 in Fujairah, and 22 in Umm al-Quwain.

[77] Other Arab countries that received Korean migrant workers during the late 1970s and early 1980s include Yemen, Oman, and Sudan.