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English teachers in Korea: how many and where from?

 
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kim jong il



Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Pyongyang room salon with a pocket full of rice!

PostPosted: Fri Jan 24, 2003 6:46 am    Post subject: English teachers in Korea: how many and where from? Reply with quote

does anyone know where we can get information on how many foreign english teachers there are legally teaching in korea and where they come from? i'm guessing that e2 visa issuances would cover a good 98% of us. if anyone has recent numbers that would suffice.

thanks, dear leader
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kiwifruit



Joined: 26 Jan 2003
Location: my apartment

PostPosted: Sun Jan 26, 2003 2:22 am    Post subject: um... Reply with quote

sorry I can't really help, but the NZ ambassador to S Korea said on Korean TV a few months ago that there were an estimated 2000 New Zealanders in Korea at that time (october 2003). He reckons it is up from about 50 at the start of 2000. Which I personally think is rubbish since I knew of 5 at that time and I only knew about 30 foreigners total in all of Korea.

New Zealand has 3.9 millions people. We would only make up about 10% of all teachers in Korea at the absolute maximum from my personal experiences. It could be as low as 3-4% though. So this doesn't really help but a guess would be about 20,000-45000 foreign teachers. who knows?

I often wonder how many foreigners there are registered in the ROK but I to cannot find out the numbers.

kf
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TECO



Joined: 20 Jan 2003

PostPosted: Sun Aug 31, 2003 8:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Good question!

20,000?
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eamo



Joined: 08 Mar 2003
Location: Shepherd's Bush, 1964.

PostPosted: Sun Aug 31, 2003 9:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I heard 10,000. That's from a previous thread here.
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TECO



Joined: 20 Jan 2003

PostPosted: Sun Aug 31, 2003 9:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sounds reasonable.

I read in the paper that Japan had about 1,000,000 foreigners studying, working and living there.

Most are Chinese, Korean and other Asians with a small number from Canada/America/Australia/U.K. etc.
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camel96
Guest




PostPosted: Sun Aug 31, 2003 9:11 am    Post subject: Re: um... Reply with quote

kiwifruit wrote:
sorry I can't really help, but the NZ ambassador to S Korea said on Korean TV a few months ago that there were an estimated 2000 New Zealanders in Korea at that time (october 2003). He reckons it is up from about 50 at the start of 2000. Which I personally think is rubbish since I knew of 5 at that time and I only knew about 30 foreigners total in all of Korea.

New Zealand has 3.9 millions people. We would only make up about 10% of all teachers in Korea at the absolute maximum from my personal experiences. It could be as low as 3-4% though. So this doesn't really help but a guess would be about 20,000-45000 foreign teachers. who knows?

I often wonder how many foreigners there are registered in the ROK but I to cannot find out the numbers.

kf


Hey Kiwifruit did you know that New Zealand has the highest percentage of it's population living abroad out of any country in the world. It's something like 25%. Granted most kiwis are in Oz (something like 15% of the total NZ pop.) But when you consider that most other western nations are down around 5% of their population residing in other countries it's a totally impressive statistic. A trophy to put along side the "Inventor of the Pav" award... Wink
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Gord



Joined: 25 Feb 2003

PostPosted: Sun Aug 31, 2003 5:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I read a couple months ago that in 2002 there were 6000 E2 visas issued.

The total number of foreigners in Korea (work visas, tourist visas, and people who have overstayed) was around 260,000 of which the majority were Chinese labourers.

Interestingly, Japan at the start of 2003 had 227,000 legal foreign workers in the country.
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mack the knife



Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: standing right behind you...

PostPosted: Sun Aug 31, 2003 5:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
There were 6000 E2 visas issued.


Fine. What about the folks that were already here working/teaching under E2/F2/F5/etc. etc. etc.? And you cannot discount the illegal teachers (who are working on visas other than what you have mentioned (read: soldiers).


Last edited by mack the knife on Mon Sep 01, 2003 12:55 am; edited 1 time in total
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VanIslander



Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Geoje, Hadong, Tongyeong,... now in a small coastal island town outside Gyeongsangnamdo!

PostPosted: Sun Aug 31, 2003 5:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Kiwifruit, to your question about how many foreigners in Korea overall, according to national statistics, there were 168,950 foreign residents in Korea in 1999; by city government stats, there were 73,228 foreign residents in Seoul in 2000. (NOTE: The stat is residents NOT workers]

Kimjongil, I've had no luck searching for E-2 visa issuances, but whenever we find out the stat, we'll have to add an estimate of unauthorized teachers, of whom I know a few personally (and I don't know many foreign teachers in Korea).

To help make that extra estimate, consider some numbers. When it comes to total number of foreign workers, well, Gord knows. His recall of 260,000 is ballpark to the Korean ministry of justice stats for 2000 which show 95,126 legal foreign workers and an extra 172,502 foreigners working illegally (of which 38% are Chinese migrant workers).

I guess at least 5 percent of the illegal workers are in the relatively lucrative hogwan market... hmm, subtract the Chinese first, round down, and that's... at least 5,000 illegal teachers.

I gander from my limited experiences and general impression that about a quarter of all legal foreign workers are ESL teachers. So, that's about 24,000. Add the estimate of legals and illegals together, round the number, and I get about 30,000 as my guestimate.

Kiwifruit reasoned from his experience and a politician's comment a guestimate range of 20,000-45,000.

The two guestimates are basically the same, given our margin of error is + or - any large percentage you can think of, 19 times out of 20.

So, 30,000 I'd bet.

I've a hard time believing the 10,000 number eamo recalls another poster throwing around. It seems a bit low. Especially with so many Korean job opening ads littering the net.
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