Job Discussion Forums

[Harajuku Girl]

I just have a question with regard to the loan that is available to Interac employees.

I was led to believe that this was only obtainable after you had set up your bank/post office account ,which very often would be up to ten days after your arrival date.

However, in the e-mail I was sent by Interac today it stated:


The loan money will be deposited into your newly set-up postal bank account when you get to your placement and open one or can be offset against the initial payment for your housing costs.

Have I understood this correctly? .......that I would alternatively be able to obtain it pretty much as soon as I would have to pay my apartment set-up costs?

This does make a difference to me. I imagine at this stage I should have about 360 000 yen going over, so I may very well need a loan if my apartment costs are toward the higher end. If I can't get the Interac loan straight away to pay these costs, I'll need to get a small loan elsewhere before departing.

Can any current or former Interac employees enlighten me on this topic?

[seklarwia]

[Harajuku Girl]

Thanks for the reply!

[razorhideki]

Lovely. You go all the way over across the ocean & you're "happy" to make 200,000k/mo.(or whatever?).

You'll be lucky to recover your "start up costs" after a year.
Why do newbies take these contracts?

[Amarok]

[seklarwia]

[razorhideki]

Need you go on? Yes. Why? Because...

1)No matter how much one craves the "Japan Experience"(an "experience" it be alrighty...if one's definition of ''experience" includes being placed into indentured servitude under the overlords at a typical eikaiwa/dispatch co.), it is madness to accept a contract, anywhere, anytime, that puts you behind the financial eight ball. So, live the "experience" & live like a Sally Anner back home to save a lousy Y100,000K/mo.? When it can cost you $5K just to get over there & barely set up?

2) As long as there are those who accept these exploitative conditions, Japanese employers will not budge in offering more. Hate to quote Susan Powter, but "Stop the madness!" & refuse to accept contracts that are pure horsehockey. Get on JET, get a univ. gig or forget about Japan.

[mhard1]

[fat_chris]

[seklarwia]

Razor,

Wouldn't you be putting yourself behind the "financial eight ball" trying to get a uni job? Last I checked, an MA/MEd cost a darn bit more than $5000. You'd also possibly need publications, high Japanese ability and a couple of years teaching experience in Japan (so forking out to set up over here since some employers don't consider JET real work experience thanks to the many lazy new grads it has often brought over in the past).

So you pitch in all that time, effort and money for what? The possibility of an interview for a uni job where you are competing against 100+ other applicants. That huge investment for a non-tenured position where you might get shafted after just a year or two and you'll be lucky if you break even after all the money you have invested in getting qualified. Then there is the fact that many uni positions these days are PT, so even if you were qualified you couldn't get them to sponsor your visa in you first year. And unless you were planning to go into ESL teaching for the long haul, an MA in TESOL/Education/Applied Linguistics isn't much good for anything else. Pursuing a uni position, simply isn't realistic if you are simply coming over for a few years of experiencing Japan.

There is JET, but there aren't that many places on offer each year since so many current JETs like to stay on. If you already have a job back home, then you might be able to afford sitting around for a few years in hopes that you might be accepted on your 2nd or 3rd application. If you are currently unemployed and not able to get a decent job back home (unemployment levels are high and 1000s are being made redundant on a weekly basis back in many of our home countries) then you might not be able to afford to wait around on possibly getting onto JET. And what if you are older? JET does have an age limit, you know. And although the age limit is supposedly flexible, I seriously doubt there are or have ever been many JETs who were accepted whilst being over the age of 40 (or 35 before the age was raised).

And your solution to stop taking these jobs won't make the situation any better. They'd simply employ more people from poorer English speaking countries who would be willing to accept even less for longer hours which would further push down the wages. You might look down on a saving of $1000/month as peanuts, but I can tell you that somebody sending that money back to their family in India most certainly wouldn't.

[OneJoelFifty]

[gwynnie86]

Great points. Think about how impressive the experience will look on your CV - it will show that you're adventurous, can adapt to new situations, and that you have a level of cultural awareness that is prized nowadays.
I graduated from University in July, and after applying for about 100 jobs, Interac were the only company that got back to me. Sure, some of my friends have decent jobs after university, but despite my hours of extracurricular volunteering, my assortment of qualifications and skills on top of my 2:1 from what is meant to be one of the UK's top five universities, I ended up working in a caf�. Now THERE is a shitty job... �6.24 an hour, 45 hours a week (5 taken out for lunch), I was not only unable to "save" $1000 (roughly �650) but I was barely making it. And for that, I had to clean floors, serve some very unpleasant people, and generally run around like a headless chicken. Now I'm being given the opportunity to work in another country, to earn almost 3 times what I was earning before, and to do a job that sounds a lot more mentally stimulating, interesting and rewarding than what I was doing before. Why wouldn't I take it??
I think that sometimes, you really need to get over yourself. There is more to life to accumulating vast amounts of money... plus, of course, it can't have escaped your attention that many people in our own countries (UK, USA) who are lucky enough to be keeping their jobs have accepted some major pay cuts, while the rest struggle to find even a crappy, low-paid job. It seems like the perfect time to escape, explore and do the things you always wanted to do, even if that means earning enough to live on and nothing more.

[Mr_Monkey]

I think both sides here have valid points. It is effectively a form of indenture. However, it's worth pointing out that over half of the European immigrants to the US during the colonial period paid for the trip by agreeing to enter indentured service (source) - which is what the counterarguments seem to be focussing on. Interac loans help people get set up in Japan, so there is certainly reciprocity in the arrangement. This, of course, assumes that the contract for the apartment is between the teacher and the landlord - can anyone clarify that for me?

I'm not sure I buy the argument that Japanese employers will look to outer circle countries for their staff - there is still a certain amount of prejudice against L2 teachers even in the UK, and I've also heard tell of some frankly horrific racism in the Japanese eikaiwa industry. The status of inner circle teachers is still relatively high, and I would expect that the customers' demands (rightly or wrongly) for inner circle varieties of English would pressurise eikaiwa, at least, into raising wages as a response to to falling numbers of applications (should that ever happen, I think it unlikely). I don't think the same holds true for dispatch agencies, though, and it's important to distinguish between the two. Are eikaiwa wages also falling? Are they falling at the same rate as dispatch wages? Are eikaiwas entering into similar kinds of loan arrangements to those offered by Interac?

When I first went to Japan in 2002, all FT teachers were paid �250,000 (it seemed - certainly every teacher I discussed it with made at least that). We all know wages are decreasing as companies take advantage of the recession or are squeezed by a shrinking customer base. It's difficult to argue for individual responsibility for this, for reasons given in previous posts. I'd also add that in the UK, a qualified EFL teacher will struggle to make �1,000/month, and there are very few EFL teachers working in the UK who don't hold at least a CELTA/Cert. TESOL.

From a teaching perspective, I wish that teachers in Japan held these minimum qualifications. Sadly, most do not. From a professional perspective, the lack of qualified teachers in Japan might actually make it easier for experienced and well-qualified teachers to find work - people are always willing to pay for what they perceive to be of good quality. From the perspective of those who just want to go to Japan or are finding it difficult to secure a job after university, �1,000/month is still livable and, as previously said, a damned sight better than signing on or working in a caf� serving rude people for a pittance.

In short (I'm working late alone and I'm bored, hence the long post), as long as the teachers who are entering into these loan arrangements are aware of what they're signing up for and what it implies - having to leave suddenly due to a bereavement might cause a major financial headache, for example - then there's no 'problem' per se for them, and the numbers of inexperienced and/or unqualified teachers doesn't necessarily make life harder for the experienced, established and qualified.

[seklarwia]

[fluffyhamster]

One thing that doesn't appear to have been mentioned (apologies if I've missed it though) is at what rate Interac expects the loan to be repaid. Remember also that your first paycheck will doubtless not arrive until you've worked for two months. So you can easily double the expenses whilst halving the income for at least those first two months. Good luck saving much or avoiding further borrowing/debt with that scenario!

Oh, and even if you do break even and start saving within your first year, the work the second year may dry up locally but reappear the next prefecture over (the dispatcher promised they'd find you something, right?), forcing either a move (expensive short-term) or longer commutes (expensive long-term).

Anyway, welcome to the land of the cold limp flavourless noodle! ("Poverty is a dish best not eaten at all" - Takuan).