Job Discussion Forums

rollerblader · Joined: 01 Jul 2014 Posts: 20

Subcontractors have eaten up the ESL job markets here in the UAE. I see on the other ME pages that the same cancer is eating into the wider Gulf market. There has never been a greater demand for ESL, but wages for the field have tanked and are still searching for the bottom levels.

There was a time when employers did their own hiring/firing, but now it is so much easier to call that subcontractor and tell them to get rid of so and so and hire someone with such and such. The subcontractor then takes over. So easy for the Universities now.

The money days are fast fading in the Gulf. I can't see how anyone new could start and finish a career working under subcontractors and getting paid what the subcontractors haven't yet skimmed off.

Roller.

nomad soul · Joined: 31 Jan 2010 Posts: 11454 Location: The real world

Decreasing wages isn't anything new. Besides, contracting companies are for-profit businesses --- middle men. Their interest is in making money by keeping a percentage of the wages from each teacher they employ.

Anyway, there are still direct-hire opportunities available for those qualified (see 2016 TESOL Arabia conference in Dubai).

desertfox · Joined: 14 Jun 2015 Posts: 120

I just want to echo and support the comments made by Rollerblader.
I have been in the Gulf now for about 6 years, and the job market is as bad as I have ever known it.

Agents are indeed creaming it, and it is parasitical. There are direct hire jobs, but they are relatively few and far between. Moreover, employers have become more demanding in terms of qualifications etc.

Put that together with the increased difficulty in getting visas/Iqamas, then it is a new and much more difficult ball game.

The paradox is that I know of excellent teachers who are finding it difficult to get work, while I also know of people in jobs in Saudi who are no more than spivs and chancers.

scot47 · Joined: 10 Jan 2003 Posts: 15343

The growth in subcontracting has been at a remarkable rate. It has enabled many entrepreneurs in KSA to get rich but has not improved the lot of the average EFLer.

izmigari · Posted: Mon Feb 29, 2016 12:05 pm Post subject:

The "average EFLer" itself tends to be parasitic. I mean why else does one even have to use the term "related-degree" if the majority were actually purpose-degreed professionals?

How many times has a noob written "I'm tired of [whatever-I'm-doing] and am looking to teach English for a while" or "I wanna see the world, so I thought that teaching English would be a good way to do this".

The crassness of the field REALLY hit me when I discovered that I was sharing a teacher's room with a WHV-wielding Kiwi high school degree-holding "coworker" who was making the same pay (if not more) that I was while working on my M. Ed. in TESOL.

Employers are simply responding to the crappy morass that "we" helped create.

desertfox · Joined: 14 Jun 2015 Posts: 120

sadly, they are some of the reasons that Tefl can't be described as a profession...

The issue is that the industry as a whole is not sufficiently regulated. This feeds into the problem, acute in the Middle East it seems, of people who are teaching but are not properly qualified.

I have worked with them and it was openly known. What was the response of the management? To ignore it...

Not only to lack qualifications, but also to invent them on the hoof.

Laughable really...

One Canadian guy who had been an air line steward, suddenly had an MBA.. Nice work if you can get it!

Lord T · Joined: 07 Jul 2015 Posts: 285

Most contracts have clauses stating that those found to have made false claims about their qualifications will be sacked immediately.

The claim of an MBA was fraudulent - no action was taken.

nomad soul · Joined: 31 Jan 2010 Posts: 11454 Location: The real world

izmigari · Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2016 3:57 am Post subject:

nomad soul · Joined: 31 Jan 2010 Posts: 11454 Location: The real world

izmigari · Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2016 5:10 am Post subject:

I will take the high road and refuse to argue with your inability to not have the last word.

The thread started off with subcontractors, which are employers.

It is YOU who brought up the specter of "business visas".

Over and out on this issue.

Lord T · Joined: 07 Jul 2015 Posts: 285

nomad soul is correct to note that essentially if you aren't employed legally, having gone through the work visa/iqama process, qualifications and contracts are meaningless.

izmigari is correct to note that those that work illegally are an example of what is wrong with our industry.

The person who claimed the fake MBA has worked at a college in Saudi without an iqama for 6 years.

Lord T · Joined: 07 Jul 2015 Posts: 285

I should add that he was one of two people hired through an agency when the college were short staffed. The other guy was qualified and eventually managed to get an iqama.

Last year they booted out the teacher with the iqama (no reason given) and the iqamaless man with the fake MBA remained.

Yes, the industry is in a mess and I doubt agents will make things better.

scot47 · Joined: 10 Jan 2003 Posts: 15343

Agents or Subcontractors ? There is a distinction !

desertfox · Joined: 14 Jun 2015 Posts: 120

scot47 - pray enlighten us