Korean Job Discussion Forums

[mrgisa]

Hi All,


I just got to thinking that with inflation here, the falling won and the mountain of work that got dumped on me for my Winter Camps, that teaching here in Korea is just becoming less and less attractive.

I know the goverment has some high expectations of the Korean teachers (all speaking English in Public School classrooms in '09 or something? good luck to that...) and I can see how they are trying to ease visa restrictions for other foreigners and those still in University but I doubt they will reach their targets when factoring the above problems.

As time goes on, do you think less foreigners will come, the same amount or more? I personally think less will come given all the above factors but then again, perhaps the economies are so bad back home that people might be desperate...

What do you think the goverment will do to entice us to come? I'm just getting fed up with all the b.s. I'm dealing with at work lately (quite sure I won't resign with this particular school) but after talking to my supervisor and hearing the planned changes for winter camps in all the schools and what not, I think they'll be trying even harder to squeeze water from a rock...

Gisa ^^

[Ice Tea]

In the short term I think it will definitely affect the quality of teachers that come to Korea,which will in turn more Koreans against the foreign community, leading to more restrictions and another round of lower quality.

In the long term however things look even worse. Wages in China have for the first time reached a level that is competitive with Korea. Already those with an affinity for a cultural experience will choose China over Korea. In the coming years it will only get better as China gets richer and more schools can pay more. With 1.2 billion people, there seems to be no limit the English teacher market that could arise there. So eventually China will steal Korea's thunder. But perhaps in a few years once the older generation stops having kids, demand for English hagwons will decline anyways. It seems the peak for foreign English teachers was this year and from now on I see it slowly declining.

[marlow]

I'm going. EPIK has been stagnant for almost five years in terms of total remuneration. It has increased slightly, but inflation outweighs the gains heavily. I'm not selling myself for this any more.

The visa harassment, and the trickle down effect it has had on public school jobs, was the first annoying thing. I'm F2 but I needed HIV and drug tests even though immigration didn't want them.

Now the won. It will probably recover, but it made me think about being here in general. Marlow decided to get the heck out of Dodge.