Kathmandu, July 4 Only half of job aspirants who had cleared the Korean Language Test (KLT) conducted by the Employment Permit System (EPS) last year will be able to go to South Korea this year, as per the EPS Korea Section at the Department of Foreign Employment (DoFE). Though 12,900 job aspirants had cleared the KLT last year, the Korean government has notified that it will take only 6,700 workers from Nepal this year, informed Sovakar Bhandari, information officer at EPS Korea Section at DoFE. As per him, the Korean government has said it will take 4,700 workers for the production sector and 2,000 workers for the agriculture sector, though 9,133 job aspirants had cleared the Korean Language Test to work in the production sector and 2,876 had cleared the test to work in the agriculture sector in Korea. The Korean government will examine the skills of all those who have cleared the language test and Korean firms will hire competitive workers from among them. Though skill test was previously not mandatory for those who had cleared the EPS KLT examinations, the Korean government has made it mandatory from this year. Meanwhile, altogether 92,356 job aspirants across the country have applied for Korean jobs for next year. The EPS Korea Section had taken the examination of these aspirants last month. Of them, 63,487 aspirants have applied for jobs in the production sector and 28,889 in agriculture sector. The ceiling set by South Korea for Nepali workers for next year is 10,050. The validity of EPS KLT will be for two years, which means that those who pass KLT cannot apply for jobs in South Korea after two years. The South Korean government has set basic monthly salary of 1,236,000 won (around $1,075) for Nepali workers. Over 50,000 Nepali workers have received opportunities to work in South Korea under the EPS so far.