Job Discussion Forums

[dangerousapple]

The economic crisis has most definitely hit the cram school industry. I own two schools in Kaohsiung. New enrollments for classes are down 25% compared with last year. We've also had a number of students leave because their parents lost their jobs. I'm having trouble protecting my teachers' hours. They are all working fulltime for now, but if things don't pick up soon I'll have to start cancelling classes.

I know most people will never believe this, but it's better to be a teacher than an owner right now.

[MomCat]

[BigWally]

Hsinchu does have a lot of white collar workers doesnt it? This could lead to the difference in perception.

The white collar areas are much different than the blue collar areas (ie. Kaohsiung) which are most likely the first to be hit when recession markets start rearing their ugly heads.

[MyTrunkshow]

25% is a big drop in enrolment year on year. That's startling..are all those drops related to job loss and the crisis? If you layoff, will that be in the summer? Sept/09 will be the big indicator of enrollment.

My old employer has gone from 150 students to 180 students. That's a 15 % increase for September/08. Our school is not new. Another Giraffe opened down the street in Yung Ho in the summer /08. It didn't replace a closed school and all the kids come from Hsyou Lang Elementary. A new building is being eyed for next year to deal with the increase. This is in TPE County, across the river from Gongguan.

Local market forces seem to be just as significant as the doom and gloom.

If the crisis is here, then some schools are going to do better as some struggle, I suppose. Call it cram school Darwinism.

mts.

[craigzy]

ive talked to about a dozen foreign teachers here in taichung that are looking for jobs or more hours and cant find them.

[timmyjames1976]

[MomCat]

[dangerousapple]

[matchstick_man]

The true measure of the economic crisis and its effects on ESL in Taiwan won't show, in terms of enrolments, until June/July. School enrolments often drop or increase just after Chinese New Year.

[akmassager]

I DECIDED NOT TO GO TO TAIWAN!!!

With your lack of qualifications, I wouldn't sally forth to Taiwan now. There are many qualified people here who are having problems finding work and making ends meet. Just to give you an idea, around 600 Taiwanese Ph.ds are currently teaching in high schools across the island because they can't get jobs at universities! One wonders if the money and time spent, plus the anxiety of getting a Ph.d, were all really worth it. I'd say definitely not. Why not look elsewhere? China is still growing, as is Vietnam. Everywhere else, bar the Middle East, is in the doldrums.[/quote]

[forest1979]

A comment was made earlier that the Taiwanese value their kids' education - true - and that they would put that in front of things like holidays. Well in Hong Kong both kids classes and holidays are being cancelled. The recession is hitting very hard so I doubt that even by the summer their shall be much of an upturn. It's going to be difficult for anyone new coming to Taiwan until probably at least mid-2010.

[linzbc]

[forest1979]

The law of averages says that a country of 1.2 billion people is going to have more jobs available than a country of 23 million. However, China has taken a battering in the past few months. How deep the slowing of the economy is no one truly know as the government keeps such information very close to its chest. Hong Kong however is a different place within the mass of China so what happens there is not always reflective of what happens in the Mainland but to generalise, people are certainly tighening their belts and the once free availability of TEFL jobs is drying up.