Job Discussion Forums

[Never Ceased To Be Amazed]

...and they have since at least 1990 when the yen was 150 to th' USD.

Think about it. That's a HELLUVA long time without a COLA!

NCTBA

[flyer]

really?
I am sure some wages have gone up in that time and some have gone down, I know the boss (kyoikucho) of my BOE had a pay cut and all the teachers in Hokkaido had a pay cut a few years ago
.. and I think from memory the whole Sapporo town office has had a wage cut and limits on bonuses for the past few years (I am sure Glenski can correct me on that)

[Never Ceased To Be Amazed]

I was in the 3rd wave of JETs (1990-1)[altho I stayed until '93] and the pay was 300,000 less the subsidized rent.

It doesn't seem as things have changed in the last two decades.

Christ! Now, I feel OLD!

NCTBA

[kotoko]

Maybe that is right.. perhaps they took my rent out on pay day so it seems like less.
But I still wouldn't do this job for a long time. My braid would just melt.

[Never Ceased To Be Amazed]

Ugh...I'll say no more...lest you not respect me in the morning...

NCTBA

[gaijinalways]

Similar to Glenski

Have worked

teaching

business English at corporations; high tech, financial, manufacturing, etc..
- 2-4 years on and off

language school -11 years

junior college - 5years

universities - 10 years

The universities are by far the best, decent pay for a fair amount of work at times. Love the paid vacations, coming up on another big one now.

One business job now is fun, high level students. The language school is the one oddity, probably the worst paid, but by far the least amount of work. Getting awfully pc recently though, and they don't have a cool biz policy in the summer!

But I like a lot of the people who work there, a decent bunch, so I go there now and then. If I work there too much, I feel tired (and then I am ready to go back to uni again), though this year may be similar to last year, maybe there won't be much work..

[PO1]

I'm hoping to expand outward from teaching eventually. I'd still like to do some part time, just probably not full time my whole life. That's why I'm studying more Japanese so I can hopefully get into other fields where I can use English and Japanese.

That's mainly why I asked about long term jobs in Japan. I understand teaching is probably the main foreigner source of income (unless you're military) but I'd like to challenge myself more to get into other fields. My main interest is publishing, so that would be great if that panned out eventually.

[Piri-Piri]

[johanne]

I worked at an international school for 5 years and there were many long term teachers there. I would say about 15 foreign teachers had been there for over 10 years. If you like teaching K-12, as opposed to ESL, this can be a very rewarding career. You need a teaching certificate rather than a TESL, but it only takes a year to get one. The salary is good enough to support a family and still be able to travel regularly and live a fairly comfortable lifestyle. After 10 years, many teachers are making over 600,000 yen a month. You get paid over the holiday, which are generous (9 weeks in summer, 3 at Christmas, 1-2 in Spring and 1-2 in October). I really enjoyed the job, but missed teaching in public school so I'm heading back to Canada.

Also, in teaching there I found a lot of ex-pats were working in IT, Erikson especially stands out because they also hire in the countries they are in and I knew a couple of people who got their jobs there after they had arrived in Japan. Mostly, though, the people working there were transferred from the Erikson office in their own country.
Also, at our school there were several families who worked in the oil industry, although most of them were again transferred from their home country.

If you can get your Japanese level high enough, there are a lot of possibilities. There were several families at the school where the foreign father was running his own company in Japan - of course in this case his level of Japanese needed to be very high. These men did not always have Japanese wives, either and were able to bring their families to Japan on dependent visas and support them quite nicely. Fees at an international school can run up to 2,000,000 yen a year and one family had 4 kids at our school. If you are teaching at an international school, you usually only pay up to 10% of the fees, which can be a nice perk if you have kids.

Anyway, good luck. There are possibilities out there.

[PO1]

@Piri-Piri: Thanks for the advice. I wouldn't even mind starting out lowly. My first goal: menu editing!

But really, doing part-time teaching and working for a publishing company would be my ideal condition in Japan. I plan on getting married early next year, so I want to get tied in to different things other than teaching for the future if I can. I've done internships in publishing and I'm learning Japanese slowly but surely, so I think it'd be a good career to get into.

EDIT: @johanne: Also thanks for the international school advice. I think if I stick with teaching for the long haul, that is where I'd like to transition. The turn-over rate is very low I understand, but I'd like to give it a try anyhow.

[Piri-Piri]

[PO1]

I have a teaching license that expires in 2013, so that buys me some time. Not sure how I would renew if I'm living in Japan. I suppose I should start looking into that.

[rxk22]

[kotoko]

[Never Ceased To Be Amazed]