My Korean employer fired me with two weeks' notice and no reason — I'm on an E-7. Do I have any rights, and what happens to my visa?

Your colleagues are right about the law and wrong about the conclusion. Korean employment law does not allow dismissal without just cause, applies equally to foreign employees, and has a fast administrative process for challenging it. You are also owed severance for three and a half years regardless of how this ends. The visa is the complication, and it is a real one: an E-7 is tied to the sponsor, and a termination starts a clock the Immigration Office controls. Fighting the dismissal does not automatically extend that clock — but the way you fight it, and the outcome you negotiate, can change what you leave with and when.

What this is under Korean law

Article 23 of the Labor Standards Act (근로기준법, geullo gijun-beop) prohibits dismissal without just cause (정당한 이유, jeongdanghan iyu). "Position no longer needed" is a redundancy claim, and redundancy dismissals must meet the separate requirements of Article 24: urgent managerial necessity, efforts to avoid dismissal, fair selection criteria, and prior consultation with employee representatives. A single foreign employee removed with no documented process rarely meets them. Article 27 requires that a dismissal and its reasons be given in writing; a one-line date confirmation is not that, and a dismissal without written reasons is invalid on that ground alone.

Article 26 requires thirty days' notice or thirty days' pay in lieu; the "courtesy" month may be that payment and not a courtesy at all.

Severance pay (퇴직금, toejikgeum) under the Employee Retirement Benefit Security Act accrues at roughly thirty days' average wage per year of service; three and a half years yields a substantial sum, payable within fourteen days of termination, independent of any dispute.

How the process works in Korea

The remedy is an application for relief from unfair dismissal (부당해고 구제신청, budang haego gujesincheong) to the regional Labor Relations Commission (노동위원회, nodong wiwonhoe), filed within three months of the dismissal. It is faster and lighter than a court: a hearing typically within two to three months, at which the employer bears the burden of proving just cause. The Commission can order reinstatement with back pay, or, where the employee does not want reinstatement, monetary compensation in lieu. A court action for a declaration that the dismissal is void is also available and runs longer.

Foreign employees have full standing before the Commission. Interpretation is arranged for the hearing.

In practice, many of these cases settle at or before the hearing: the employer, facing a weak file, offers a negotiated separation — additional months of pay, an agreed departure date, a clean reference — in exchange for withdrawal. For a foreign employee, the negotiated departure date and the timing of the employer's termination report to immigration are often worth more than the headline sum.

Your situation as a foreign national

An E-7 sponsor must report the end of employment to the Immigration Office, which then determines what period you have to find a new sponsor, change status, or depart. Those determinations are made by the Immigration Office, and we do not predict them; what we can say is that they are made on facts, and the facts are in play. A pending Labor Relations Commission case is not, by itself, a basis to remain; a negotiated continuation of employment through a settled date is. That is why the sequencing between the legal claim and the immigration timeline should be planned together from the start. MEGA X handles the employment claim; on the status side we coordinate with an immigration specialist as part of the matter.

What to do now, and what not to do

Do not sign anything the company sends about "mutual separation" or "resignation"; a resignation ends the dismissal claim. Do not stop attending work before the stated date unless told in writing. Do: request the written statement of reasons under Article 27 in writing; collect your contract, evaluations, pay records and the emails around the termination; note the three-month deadline; and get the status timeline from an immigration specialist this week. Then file, or use the filing to negotiate — both are decisions with the visa calendar open beside them.

Practical insight

Foreign employees give up these claims because the visa clock feels like a verdict. It is a constraint, not a verdict, and employers know the difference; a company that has dismissed a foreign employee without written reasons is exposed, and it is exposed on a schedule that a filed claim sets. The employees who leave with months of additional pay and a controlled departure are the ones who filed. The ones who "just left" were counting on to do exactly that.

Send us the HR email and your contract and we can tell you what the claim looks like and how it lines up with the immigration timeline — by text consultation or at +82-2-522-3959.

— MEGA X Law Firm Korea, Labor Team