Job Discussion Forums

[nomadder]

Saw a job ad offering 240,000/mth(40hrs a week) but in their past ads they offered 250,000. No one should take less than 250,000 unless there are perks involved. That's already low enough. Don't let employers force the wages down any further.

[stillnosheep]

I have heard that Nova, the industry leader, have started offering　220 000 to new teachers.

Standing our ground will require organisation.

[yamanote senbei]

It really depends on the perks. Things like housing subsidies will actually lower your income tax burden. I doubt that companies have suddenly seen the light and are lowering base salaries and boosting non-taxable benefits though.

[stillnosheep]

Income tax burden?!

We are talking about Japan here. The income tax on 250 000 pcm is about 10 000.

Far from subsidising accomodation Nova put teachers into shared apartments and charge them far more, in total, than the cost of the apartment. Nobody is increasing the accomdation subsidy. Aeon have relatively recently reduced their subsidy (= raised their guaranteed maximum rent) by 3000 pcm.

[Stosskraft]

I am relatively positive that that school is just lowering the salary to increase managements profit.

[yamanote senbei]

Don't forget resident's tax.

[nomadder]

What began this downturn? The big, greedy cos lowering the rate, just the general economic slump, less enrollment or...?

[PAULH]

A recent post on Gaijinpot about NOVA...

(I quote)

As many people have pointed out, coming to Japan is not very easy (or cheap!) if you are very selective about where and how you want to teach. In fact, it's neigh on impossible.

In many ways, the Visa is the holy grail to picking and choosing in Japan. This *should* be obvious to anyone, as, if you think about your home country, it's not like you assume it to be reasonable that any foreigner can just plunk themselves on your soil and go job hunting. So before you can really think about anything else, think about getting the visa.

What is the easiest way to get the visa? NOVA of course!!

Nova is the largest eikaiwa in the country and still growing. Recently it has extended its web beyond the largish cities and into right rural places where you really gotta scratch your head and wonder "Are there really enough people there interested in English to sustain the business?" Moreover, Nova, as a result of lawsuits in the past and a shaky legal history with the public health insurance etc., has slightly 'adjusted' it's official work time (and pay), and so now most newcomers to Nova can expect only 220,000 yen monthly, despite anything that old literature might say. Unless you are American, you will get the 'modified' work hours (34 lessons a week, 'officially' 24.99 hours a week, just 0.01 hours below the legal definition of 'full time' aka shakai hoken contributor) and in this case will receive 220,000 yen only. If you are American, you can only be offered full time work, presumably because of some kind of reciprocal agreement, and so you will receive an mind numblingly gruelling shift of officially 40 hours a week, and a full 250,000 yen a month (yippee)

Anyways, to summarize the last paragraph, Nova recently: 1) expanded into all kinds of tiny towns where few instructors expect or want to work and 2) reduced the pay substantially below the average market wage. The result? Nova is bleeding instructors more than ever before. A recent statistic from the Nova union website claims that 97% of instructors stay for less than a year -- which means Nova must replace about 4800 instructors every year! That's about 400 every single month. My point? I'm quite positive that every noodle with it's head screwed on regularly will be hired by Nova if you show up for the interview, look reasonable (sadly being white helps), have a "common" accent, and know how to smile and nod. My point is, if you go to Boston or Toronto (or London or wherever) you will almost certainly be hired.

Then Nova will ask you a bunch of questions to reassure you, but promptly ignore. For example they will ask "Do you want to work with kids or adults?" and "Where do you want to work?" Both these questions are a joke, because they will be entirely and completely ignored. You will be sent to the area of "operational needs" which, invariably, is the place where people are quitting most often. People don't quit from Okinawa or Tokyo or Osaka quite as often as they quit from sticksville-farm-branch, so expect to be sent to the wrong end of Japan.

That being said, being in a small area is a great place to 'land' in Japan, because there is less distraction to spend money and your branch will likely be more "chill" than the big ones, which affords you some much needed freedom. I would also recommend to *immediately* get onto this website and start looking for new jobs.

Now that the ever precious Visa is in your passport, it's like the golden ticket to do whatever you want. It's also the golden ticket to potential employers and recruitment agencies. Frankly, the *only* thing they care about is whether or not you have a visa. (Moreover, many of them only care that you "claim" to have a Visa, ie. not their problem if you don't)

From personal experience, I can tell you can get amazing ALT positions in about 6 hours if you have a Visa and aren't too picky where you want to live. Recruitment is often a desperate and last minute process. If you are constantly prepared to up and leave, then you will be out of Nova in no time. In fact, you will probably have to wait around with Nova not due to lack of opportunities in Japan, but because you can't afford to move in Japan right after having moved from overseas.

If you want to focus on a particular area of Japan, then you may have to continue watching the forums for a bit longer, until your area comes up, but it's only a matter of time before it will, and by time, i mean at most a month or so.

Nova is pretty quick about hiring since they are so desperate for staff. The six month waiting list sounds a bit long to me, for me it was 4 months from first application to landing in Japan. And four months is about as fast as it can possibly go, considering the amount of paperwork required to sustain that Visa.

I would wager that by using this plan, absolutely anyone that:
1) speaks english as a first language with common (ie north american, australian, NZ, UK) accent
2) has a university degree from their country

can be teaching english anywhere they want in Japan (except okinawa) within about 6 months.

[nomadder]

But would they want to?

Ridiculous business practices and a far cry from the old reputation of Japan as a place where employees stayed at a company for life and were treated like family(or is that a myth?). Not that that necessarily was the case for foreigners but still you'd think there'd be a few remnants left.

I'm envisioning a future with even more poorly paid teachers(Japanese) taking up the slack and foreigners decreasing. All the better for the Chinese economic takeover.