Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Cohiba]

Anyone been in, or lived in, a western country recently? What is
it like these days with the economy? How about jobs, prices, trends
etc.

I came to Korea for a year stint. That was 14 years ago. So I am a
little out of touch with what is happening in the west.

[alphakennyone]

I'm home in San Diego now. Most likely going back to Korea. Why? Because it's just so easy to get a job that will pay 15-20 an hour. I'm not even able to get crappy $9 an hour data entry jobs here, which I'd gladly take if it just meant getting by.

Food prices have gone up a LOT. It's getting almost to the point of Japanese prices for meat and Korean prices for produce.

Gas is wavering between $2-3 a gallon, which is less than this time last year.

Rents aren't going down but they finally stopped going up.

Lots more homeless on the street than I remember and my car got stolen within 2 weeks of being back (recovered later though).

Trends? Uh, hiphop hasn't gone anywhere. More people sporting the emo look while probably less are listening to emo music. BBWs seem to have become both more prevalent and proud, and plenty of the fellas seem to like it (or have no alternatives?). A lot of my friends hunt for dates/lays on craigslist...I'm only 26 and I remember internet dating still being taboo even a few years ago.

Mexican food is still cheap (large $3-5 burritos) and delicious beer is still plentiful.

[dporter]

In Ohio for the past 3 years. The recent announcements by GM and Chrysler have hit the Midwest hard.

We are starting to see secondary industry being hurt because they are no longer supplying auto manufacturers. The closing of dealerships is hurting small businesses like diners who cater to those employees.

Heck, even little league baseball teams are hurting because it is more difficult to find team sponsors.

I think unemployment in Cleveland is around 10% and the real unemployment is probably much higher. Local school districts are hurting because declining property values reduces their funding. State and federal projects are in danger because of lower tax revenues. I know a few MA graduates who were not accepted into PhD programs. Perhaps due to lack of money available to universities.

All in all I wouldn't want to be looking for a job in the Midwest anytime in the next 3-5 years.

[Cohiba]

[NightSky]

emo:

http://i707.photobucket.com/albums/ww77/Gigifish_album/emo.jpg

[Robot_Teacher]

It's just getting poorer as the gap widens with a few, a tiny few, who are loaded hanging on to what they got hoping the dollar doesn't collapse, while the same old places from the 40's and 60's just sit and look more and more older, dilapidated, and run down as time passes with nothing new going in. NO development as it continues to fall into a 3rd world state of condition.

Food prices were rising, thousands of layoffs mounting each passing day, and no one's hiring. Jobs only pay about $7 to $9/hour even if you have degree, military service, and high skills with a good CPU sitting on your shoulders. Employers aren't willing to pay Gen X and Y sheeeeeet. The old biz leaders in charge are greedy and hanging onto what they have only living for today as they know they don't have nothing to worry about as they're dying as well as taking us all down with their dying ways.

That's home.

It seems the only way to make it there is to either have money and good brains playing the market or to inherit property and money. There seems to be no good career opportunities being offered these days unlike in decades past where you could get an education and make a good living without needing rich parents to set you up as is the case for my best friend who is pulling down $10,000 grand or more a month doing real estate appraisal his retired bank president dad got him into. My friend only has a psychology degree with mediocre grades including F's, got on academic probation for year, but hunkered down to graduate when his daddy tightened the purse strings. He's got a beautiful set up of a home biz as well as a nice new home being built going on 10 years after college graduation.

Those who didn't have rich parents? No dice with a very few exceptions. It's harsh.

Pizza Hut still delivers and Taco Bell is mighty delicious before you run South of the border to escape economic doldrums.

[madoka]

Eh, I live in southern California in one of the most expensive cities to live in the U.S. and I can't say that it's all that bad. If you go to the malls, they are still packed. If you have money, it's great because prices have decreased so much. I'm trying to justify a sixth car and the biggest thing stopping me is that I've run out of parking spots.

The food prices are pretty cheap, especially if you like fast food. The local pizza shops, such as Round Table Pizza, offer all-you-can-eat buffets for $5-6. Subway and Quizno's offer footlong sandwiches for $4-5. Carl's Jr. sells two Famous Stars for $3. That's two large (monstrously huge by Korean standards) burgers for cheap. McDonald's, Wendy's, Taco Bell, etc. all have dollar menus. If you want to go fancier, Ruby Tuesdays and TGIF has $6 lunch menus.

Here's a random story:

One of the things I was reminded of when I came back from Korea, was the omnipresent beggars in California. I was at a freeway offramp when I opened my window for fresh air. Immediately, a beggar came rushing over because he thought I was opening the window to give him money.

I have noticed my local beggar, a lanky, tall white guy in his early 30s, is doing really bad these days. He has got to be the hardest working beggar I've ever seen. Wakes up super early to make sure he gets this very lucrative offramp and stays there all day long bowing to people. I noticed that if he doesn't get there early enough, another beggar will take that spot. He's been working that spot for several years now. Before the financial crisis, I'd estimate he was making about $15-20 per hour. Now, I haven't seen a single person give him anything. And to make matters worse for him, another beggar came on the onramp next to him. This new beggar is a former middle manager, bald white guy with a big pot belly in his late 50s, who wears a suit and tie with a sign begging for a job.

[afsjesse]

Yikes... reading this makes me scared to go back to Michigan before I move to Minnesota for graduate school. Hope those 2 years go by quick so I can high tail it back here!!!

[Yu_Bum_suk]

He drove the usual one-hour commute on various high-ways and bi-ways - none of which was particularly direct or free of congestion - from the shop his father owned in the minivan his father owned, the A/C barely adequate for the hot, BC summer day. Arriving at the home he left 11 hours earlier, he could see various toys scattered throughout the six-inch tall grass and 12-inch tall weeds that covered the lawn. Fatigued and famished he trudged to the front door, and paused to listen. An unattended TV was blaring some cartoon downstairs and a baby was wailing from another room. From the living room he could hear a series of defiant 'No!'s spoken with unmistakable four-year-old indignation.

'Justin! Do you want a spanking!? ...I'm counting to three! One! Two! Two-and-a-half!' bellowed a 55-year-old voice from a 35-year-old woman's body.

He paused, suddenly stricken with the temptation that he could quietly climb back in the van and pull away to the pub around the corner and phone home to say some extra service calls had come up. Oh, the thought of a big, cold beer and greasy burger in the shade of the pub patio...

At last he slid the handle open and gingerly walked into the din that was his abode, resigned. A pile of laundry sat on the sofa. A baby still wailed in the next room. A four-year-old whose right to climb the balcony railing had been infringed was about to join him. And there in the centre of it all was his first true love, a good one-hundred pounds heavier than when he had lost his virginity to her, who had been waiting patiently all day long to tell her all her troubles from yet another day. Her interest in his day consisted of 'Why are you so late again'?

On the counter sat several half-made dishes and mostly consumed Big-Mac and Mchappy meals from a take-away lunch. Apart from that and the load of laundry on the sofa, the house looked exactly the same as when he had left it shortly after dawn, despite the litany of events his wife was recounting from the day. Upon seeing him, Justin was quickly back in side to give Dad his feelings about how the day was going. The baby still wailed in the other room.

And that, my friend, is what's going on back home almost every single day in the life of my best friend. Take away 30 pounds from the wife, and it could be the story of the other best friend with whom I grew up. People here who think they're missing something make me think something's missing with their head.

[English Matt]

I came here 1 year ago from the UK....that was around the time the first bank (Northern Rock) failed in the UK and was nationalised and AIG was posting it's first massive (well it seemed massive at the time) loss. Jobs were becoming a lot more difficult to get at that time....call centre and data entry jobs at around �8 an hour seemed to be the norm for a graduate. I also became unemployed for the first time in my life....it took me 6 weeks to find anything, before that I would have been out of work for a few days whilst I considered the various offers coming my way before choosing one of them.

The writing was on the wall at the time and hearing from family and friends, things have only gotten worse. I have friends who are trained nurses, teachers, accountants with experience but they have been unemployed for months. Food prices have gone up, and I was already paying more a year ago in the UK for most food items than I do now here in Korea. However, prices for other things (particularly clothes) has decreased so I hear.

There is a real lack of faith in government nowadays...MPs have recently come in for a lot of flack due to their expense claims, as have the executive class in the private sector for the huge bonuses they continue to award themselves. Frugality is the new watchword....people are taking their holidays outside of the Eurozone area due to the �'s relative weakness against the Euro, people are cutting back on their leisure spending, people are agreeing to having their salaries or hours cut to save their jobs.

I'm curious to see what the general mood on the street is going to be like - I go back for a month's vacation in July so will find out then.

[michaelambling]

[blaseblasphemener]

This is an awesome thread!

Yu Bum Suk, great story. Never will understand why doing 3 or 4 tasks in a day while looking after children is such a hardship.

Madoka, I have one car and it's more than enough. Are you into restorations or something?

It's great that all those fast food places can offer such cheap food. Maybe that's how they can afford to pay their employees $5/hour with no benefits.

Meanwhile, the government of Canada has just announced this years budget deficit will be $50 Billion (and counting), and a 72-month deficit of $172 billion. Although, high oil prices should help that a tad.

Glad I'm in Korea. Very glad.

[Goku]

These depressing stories of woes at people at home actually lift my spirits. As cynical and probably horrendous it is. Face it, we enjoy knowing that we live enjoyable lives ESPECIALLY compared to those in misery, or what could have happened.

My family makes relativley a lot of money back at home. But because of the economy my dad was, in a way, downsized. It's complicated, but anyways we still have checks coming every month so my family isn't dying.

But even my mom who works for the government is worried about her job security.

I'm told that employment is starting to look much higher than 10%. Everyone who knows anyone is losing a job and everything is still so expensive. College prices haven't dropped but everything else seems to be rising.

Everyone is worried about their job and my friend got an entry level job is jumping for joy. Can you imagine jumping for joy at an entry level job? He is so overqualified for the job too.

I'm gonna stay put in Korea until this blows over. I can't stand the thought of being pegged a loser for teaching in Korea. But it may come down to it. Honestly, it probably was a much smarter move on our part to come to Korea... if we came with the intention of avoiding the dying economy instead of being just flat out lazy.

[asylum seeker]

Depressing. I still plan to go back home though. Korea has a lot going for it but I wouldn't want to put kids through the school system here and frankly, my home country (NZ) has a better environment (you can go for a 5 hour hike through varied, beautiful scenery and not see another person).

[Kurtz]

I spent most of my time on the road back home but in brief, from Melbourne, Australia and Tasmania...

Heaps of non-white faces on the trains. Heaps of Indians and I'd say I was in the minority being white, also lots of Africans now.

Apart from coffee, eating out was quite expensive, but the diversity and quality of the food was superb, I really miss that aspect in Korea

After going hiking in the mountains and along the beach, I realized how lucky I was to grow up in Australia, where there is so much clean nature. Seeing kids playing on a pristine beach with tame kangaroos hanging around makes me realize that's a great place for a kid to grow up, not here in such a cramped dirty place.

On the job front, lots of cost cutting/down sizing going on which is a major reason I'm here.

House prices are very high. I'd have to be on at least AUS $80,000 to have the same lifestyle I have in Korea where I don't have to worry about money too much.

All up, I wish I was back home living in a great country but because I've been in Korea now for over 2 years, I can't just pack up and take up where I left off as things have changed on the job situation.

I am grateful to have a job here where I can save good money, but the lifestyle in terms of things to do, places to go, nature on your doorstep, lack of crowds , quality eating, music, festivals, arts scene is totally lacking here.