Job Discussion Forums

[basiltherat]

With the alleged increase in unemployment (lay offs) in the UK and US due to the economic and financial mess, I would guess that we are going to see an inevitable increase in the number of people who want to get into this gig. After all, its totally unregulated, certification can be procured in a very short time (ye old 4-week tefl cert) ... even faked ! Who's gonna know a fake, anyway. I doubt an Indonesan EF franchisee or DOS would know, for example.

Admittedly, its poorly-paid but for those who are single and / or have no financial burdens to consider, its at least a temporary solution before procuring something similar to whay they were doing before. Whats more, they would be getting some travel experience too.

All this being the case we might see a lot of office clerk types heading out to China Korea etc ..... resuting in a potential lowering of standards / quality (if there were any in the first place !).

Either that, or its a walk down to the dole office on a regular basis.

Any views on this anyone ?

basil

[jonniboy]

I doubt it. One aspect of the economic crisis has been a weak pound and that's going to be offputting for the casual backpacker.

As for low pay though, a teacher in Latvia say will get much more than an office clerk in the UK...

[Guy Courchesne]

[naturegirl321]

[rusmeister]

I agree. Especially younger ones, who don't understand/care about weak pounds/dollars, etc. They'll go for one year, get screwed, and leave, and the language schools will get some more fresh meat.

Hi Guy! Long time, no see!

[SueH]

[jonniboy]

[guty]

Can you clarify that please?

Could an EFL teacher in Latvia really expect to make

26 x �8.85 weekly (*after tax and NI*) = �231 (+ a free flat, i.e. no outgoings)

= �1039 (around $1800) with no outgoings monthly!

With tax at 20%, that would equate to a disposable income of around �1400/ $2000. Let's remember that rents average at �650 per month, in the west ...

That is better than most EFL places in the Gulf, let alone an office clerk anywhere.

I am in the wrong line of business, my Icelandic Bank doesn't pay anywhere near that much!

[jonniboy]

As far as I know yes it's doable though I work for several language centres so you'd need to check with the individual ones to see what's on offer. Most teachers here that I know are clearing 1000 lvl per month (�1100). I get 10 to 15 per hour in hand from privates and 8 to 10 lats per hour net from the language centres I work for although I don't have a free flat supplied. However as my girlfriend owns her flat outright we've no outgoings on that score. When I was in Belfast for a month in Summer I had a look around for temp jobs but was being offered �8.50 an hour before tax for accounts admin roles which I found a bit insulting given that I've 7 years experience in that field. As a minimum a native teacher coming here would get 8 lats per hour though that could be without flat which will cost them 200-250 per month in the centre of Riga http://www.ss.lv/lv/real_estate/flats/riga/centre/_hand_over/index.html

The fact is that with the climate etc, most teachers that I know come to Riga for a year and then head off for sunnier climes but for those prepared to stick it out, yes there's money to be made - purely for the record my disposable income for this month will be higher than the figure you quoted, though that's taking into consideration circumstances above, 32/3 hour working week and the fact that I'll need to save some of that towards the summer slump (August I was only able to work 17 hours on average for example.)

[SueH]

Ta - it always helps and is interesting to have detail like that.

[Glenski]

A few years ago, we started to see an influx of teacher wannabes from the IT field. I see no reason that this would change. If other fields have problems in securing employment, people may very well look for an adventure or peek into another career, namely TEFL.

[gaijinalways]

You mean the ex-financial types will soon be 'slumming' with us? Imagine, one wife of a high rolling financial type after his layoff was complaining about his severance pay of 70K (US dollars) as this would only pay the credit card bills for a month !! Thankfully my own bills are not quite that high .

[spiral78]

I think there's a big market for English for banking/finance

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

[Marcoregano]