‘Brokerage Capitalism’ in Asian Labour Migration: Dual Governance Regimes, Migrant Precarity, and the Vietnam–South Korea Employment Permit System

This article examines the dual-brokerage regimes governing Vietnamese labour migration to South Korea, situating migration governance within broader debates on Asian capitalism and developmental state transformations. Drawing on the Employment Permit System (EPS) as a paradigmatic case of state-led migration management, we analyse how public brokerage mechanisms—embodied in Vietnam’s Department of Overseas Labour (DOLAB) and licensed sending organisations—intersect with private intermediaries to shape migration pathways. The analysis reveals structural tensions between Korea’s developmental state ambitions to regulate low-skilled labour flows and Vietnam’s export-oriented migration regime, where private brokers extract substantial fees from aspiring migrants. These tensions are amplified in new growth industries—care work, manufacturing, agriculture, and construction—where labour demand intersects with gendered migration patterns and debt-financed mobility. We argue that the Vietnam–Korea migration corridor exemplifies a distinctive form of ‘brokerage capitalism’ within Asian migration governance, where state institutions and private actors co-produce regulatory spaces that simultaneously facilitate and exploit migrant workers. The article contributes to scholarship on Asian capitalism, migration brokerage, and developmental state theory by demonstrating how migration governance reflects broader patterns of variegated capitalism in East and Southeast Asia.