Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Aussiekimchi]

I guess a whole bunch of these particular situations will come up from time to time on this forum.

This happened to one of our applicants today.
Now, he contemplates how he managed to get completely scewered after 3 weeks in Korea.

If you come in to Korea under the new regulations.....that is, you arrived after Dec 15, 2007 on your first E2 visa, you must try to complete at least 3/4 of your contract.

If you do not complete 3/4 of your contract you are unable to get a new visa without returning home and submitting all of the ORIGINAL docs again.

There will be no visa run.
There will be no visa transfer.

The Korean Immi website states that you will only have to submit the docs 1 time, once you are in the system.

Korean Immi do not consider you in the system until you complete 3/4 of your contract.

So boys and girls, do your math before you run or ask for a release from your contract.

If you do not do this, you could scewer yourself like our poor fella today.

Remember, this only applies to you if you arrived AFTER Dec 15, 2007 and you are on your FIRST E2 visa.

Keep your wits about you out there.

[blonde researcher]

This same situation happened to my friend in Busan last week. She arrived in Feb, first week, with new E2 visa under new paperwork provisions.
Her school went bankrupt right after she arrived and she was fired pretty well on arrival! So she had no job and no airfare paid.
She tried to swap to another hagwon who wanted to employ her and both schools were happy to do the paperwork, But the immigration in Busan would not allow it for excatly the same reasons you are saying now.

I tried to get advice for her and talk about this on another forum this last week and for the most part got shot down as this 'not being possible' - As many others had changed jobs with letters of release. For her there were no March 15 periods of grace at all as she had entered for the first time under the new post Dec 15 rules.

[littlelisa]

Wow, that sucks!



What foresight that school had, Blonde Researcher. "Hm, we're two steps away from bankruptcy. I know! Let's hire a new teacher."

[nomad-ish]

[bacasper]

So if we arrived BEFORE Dec. 15th, 2007, and have worked at least one day of our contract we are in the system?

[littlelisa]

That's something I'd like to know too!

[yingwenlaoshi]

Actually, it probably doesn't matter whether you're on your first visa or not. Nor does it matter if you arrived before December 15th. What matter is if you have 3/4 of your contract finished. If you don't, and it's after March 15th, you're screwed. No matter who you are.

Then you have to do the whole mess for the first time or over again. And how long are police checks valid for? I suppose that if you were in Korea the whole time and had you polie check done back home, you could just get one here. Trick is, you have to go all the way back home? I don't know. Sounds really confusing.

Anyway, for everyone, after March 15th, the employer can fire you and you'll have to go back home and do the police check, etc. all over again. So it looks like employers could find a reason to fire you or whatever while they have another teacher coming in.

Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice.

Maybe even more power to the employer. Double niiiiiiiiiiiiiiice.

They've really got to do something about that. I suppose that if you've already been working here for a while, you could just do a visa run to Japan and order your criminal check every year. Or would it be every six months? And do you have to go home to get everything appostilled?

I'm transferring (maybe) my status over to a new employer in March. They could fire me or whatever after March 15th and I'd be screwed.

Guess I better order my criminal check OR not care about it and decide if that does happen to just move on and forget about The Sparkling.

[Draz]

Why 3/4?

[yingwenlaoshi]

[captain kirk]

[yingwenlaoshi]

[bassexpander]

Geesh... I hate to say this, but it's one more huge reason it's far better for someone to just work illegally!

Gosh, if I was Canadian and had student loans, I sure would! Canadians are very lucky people!

[Atavistic]

[rhinocharge64]

I get the feeling there is a serious hidden agenda going on here in Korea right now. This 3/4 rule is mind blowing, it seems like they are adding things along the way. If I was contemplating working in Korea this would be the straw that broke the camels back. Utterly ridiculous and totally unnecessary. The hidden agenda: reduce the number of E2 visa holders. Seems like Korea is going it alone with the old English ed. system or severly reduceing the number of Westerners involved in it!!

[I-am-me]

I've been with same hagwon for 4 years. Do I still need a CRC to renew next October with same school? I am still confused with who actually needs the CRC.