Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Weigookin74]

Quotation taken from the Japanese board. Thought I would post it here because it might be interesting for people to read and comment on from a Korean point of view. (Sorry, I couldn't find a sticky on Japan vs Korea here. So, this will have to do.)

""To the OP - I've ...also assessed realistically the problems of trying to earn a living as an English teacher in Japan now....

BUT if you want to work as an English teacher in the face of the diminishing opportunities and quality of jobs out there, here's some advice. Although I don't work in Japan anymore, I know enough about the costs of setting up there. You have to ask yourself: Am I willing to sacrifice financially for an entry level job in English teaching in Japan? Is all the money I have to pay out worth it?

I didn't work in Japan in the Bubble period where there were jobs going to anybody who was an English speaker and most of those jobs paid extraordinarily well. I did work in Japan when there were far more opportunities than now, however, and it wasn't a particularly good job market though adequate even then.

You are up against it now - major chain schools have gone bust, the trend is for smaller/small eikaiwa (English schools) to employ teachers part time. Most of the job ads I've seen when just surfing the net are for people already in Japan. If you get a job with the English chains left now, chances are you will be working harder for less money and no benefits.

You will have to foot the bill for your health care costs, and you will be classified as 'self employed' when your employer does not pay half of your healthcare/pension costs. Even when I was teaching in Japan, it was a common trick to classify your full time English teacher in such a way that the employer did not have to pay shakai hoken (social insurance) because according to their dishonest assessment, the teacher is 'part time'.

Therefore the teacher has to join the kokumin kenko hoken - social insurance for the self employed and it is a big expense because you pay it all yourself.

I was one such teacher. I worked around 40 hours a week (certainly not part time!) and I paid around 25,000 yen a month (about 125 English pounds or 250 US dollars) for the NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE, NOT A PRIVATE COMPANY! I managed to get out of paying the pension part of the 'social insurance for the self employed' because then you could but it would have been about 110 US dollars or a little less per month.

Rather expensive for any teacher on the (very) average income of 250,000 yen before tax. Now the jobs being offered are usually less than that but you will still have to pay around 10 percent of your income on health insurance and you'll have to pay the pension if your local city hall insists when you sign up for the health insurance.

Factor in that almost every ad from a Japanese employer I've seen tells you that they will be your 'guarantor' for housing (you can't rent a place in Japan without a guarantor unless you know somebody or have a relative who owns the housing) but you must pay the rent and utilities. Sometimes they inflate these costs so they can take a cut especially if the rent and utilities comes out of your paycheck.

I didn't fall for that - I insisted on paying the rent and utilities myself after I'd received my salary. But many teachers have no such choice.

There is also the matter of big money deposits called various names that often are not really deposits because you can't get a large amount of money back as Japanese landlords usually will keep your money even if you didn't do any damage to the accommodation. Again, many Japanese employers will take a deposit from your salary so you're scraping by financially for some months.

Korea is a far better financial proposition for the average English teacher without teaching qualifications/MA/Phd, a great working history on their cv. Even in Japan if you have those assets you're not necessarily going to get job other than an entry level position of the kind I've described above.

The catch with Korea is the absolute disorganisation of employers, from small/smaller schools to the public/private schools sytem, elementary and secondary. You'd think that Govt sponsored jobs are better but now many of them are not. South Korea is going through a renewed xenophobic phase which is bad news as at the best of times when I worked there, irrational nationalism was a common feature of Korean life.

The school system is actively discouraging or getting rid of experienced English teachers (with or without teaching qualifications). I'm a qualified teacher but some of the best teachers I knew when I worked in Korea simply had a BA but loads of other work experience and life experience.

From my friends still in Korea, the Govt is actively seeking out unemployed graduates mostly from North America and Canada, although South Africans are popular too because many of them will accept low salaries with no quibbling. Of course there are teachers from the UK, Aus, NZ too, but the proliferation of uni graduates from the US is down to the fact that they have little knowledge of the system and are willing to accept sh##house contracts.

Last year in South Korea teachers in the Govt school schemes had their contracts broken, vacation scuttled, and were forced at many schools to come in all day during vacation.

There is no protection against this exploitation because while you can take an employer at a hagwon (the equivalent of a Japanese juku, an after-school school/cram school) to the Labor Board and win, the Govt is your employer in schemes like EPIK, SMOE, GEPIK etc.

The Koreans will always remind you in public schools that you are a kind of 'guest worker'. The overwhelming majority of public school (and private school contracts in the school system) say the foreigner is a 'Teaching assistant'. However, many foreign English teachers run classes by themselves and do a lot of extra work. Meanwhile their absent Korean 'co teacher' is sleeping in the teachers' room or snacking or using their computer - basically being a truant and refusing to teach with the foreign English teacher.

Contrary to myths I read on the net, foreign English teachers do not get paid more than Korean teachers. This is only if the Korean English teacher is straight out of university or only in their job for a few years. So foreign English teachers are getting paid around 1,8000 to 2,400 dollars (US) to handle the same work as a Korean teacher for less than half the money.

If you really must go to Korea, hunt around for a hagwon (after school school) job. But even then your way will be blocked by recruiters as very few people can approach schools directly unlike in Japan. If you know people in Korea, approach them. If you can afford it, go job hunting there.""

[shostahoosier]

I went to that post and responded.

I they were the typical "facts" that people spread on Daves, which isnt the end of the world since most of the new people I know dont know anything about Daves.

[RMNC]

Japan is cleaner, nicer and is more interesting, and more contemporary in almost every way.

Korea has hotter women and better pay/perks.

I'd say long term people tend to go to Japan just because if they're going to settle in somewhere, they want to be comfortable. I don't think anyone would describe Korea as more "comfortable" than Japan. Korea takes more work to be sane.

That's all anyone has to know. Korea is for young people, Japan is for old people/otaku nerds.

[verloc]

[nukeday]

more internationally screened movies (ha), a proliferation of the visual arts (HA), "lightening" fast internet, and better housing (HAHAHAHAHA)?

phew...i know that's why i chose to live in korea.

that and the fact that the world team-breakdancing champs are none other than this fine nation.

and you call japan contemporary!

oh, and yeah, jobs are pretty dismal in japan. even in korea, they don't ask you to go out on the street to distribute fliers or try to sell textbooks to your students after class. and hell, it was in japan that my work place tried to get me to stick to a 4-month notice resignation clause in my contract. but, i was making 290,000 yen, and my health insurance was very low as it was my first year in the country. i had a nice apartment (big kitchen, 2 tatami rooms, bathroom with bathtub, etc) for 55,000 yen which 40 min either way outside of kyoto or osaka...but that was AFTER getting rejected from a crap AEON job.

the pay/conditions at public schools (UNLESS YOU'RE ON JET) are also very disheartening...yes...worse than SMOE/EPIK/GEPIK. I don't knokw why he was complaining about vacation deskwarming...I'd imagine in Japan they'd just send you home without pay if you weren't using vacation days and school weren't in session.

[interestedinhanguk]

Though I've never been there (emphasis), I've been told that Japan is full of a lot more weirdo foreigners.

[Epik_Teacher]

[interestedinhanguk]

[shostahoosier]

[da_moler]

[ippy]

The OP is almost entirely spot on. But it is very much on workplace issues which will paint a more one picture of things.

In japan my first 3 years were spent teaching 20-23 classes a week (public school) in two schools. They also dropped in elementary on test days just because. There was however no winter or summer camp and those are a drain on lesson plans. The terms were also shorter so youd at least see the end in sight. I remember thinking how MISERABLE and long it was doing april to the end of july with only golden week and a couple of days holiday in july to break up the misery. And then i moved to korea

March to July is mental, and you dont even have a half term or a golden week. It just grinds on relentlessly. And then when youre finished, you get the pleasure of having to come up with twenty MORE lesson plans for each year group for your 3 week winter camp. I remember my first term arriving after chuesok and having to come up with 60 lesson plans for 1 class (intensive class in the morning 3 times a week, the normal second grade class from which they mainly derived, their 7+8 class and of course the winter camp). Theres NOTHING like this in Japan. In fact, even though i had to plan and prepare and solo teach in my first three years there, i reckon that one 3 month period was the equivalent of about a year and a half of activities in Japan. And thats the easy term I mean, sure you adapt and start being a little more liberal with repetition but it gives you a sense of a comparative difference in public schools. In korea you do have a fair bit more prep and have to be a bit more creative.

Indeed my final year in japan i spent in the mountains of nagano in classic team teaching mode. It was pretty much human tape recorder and 10 minute activities tailored to the lesson plan. It was the easy life. One of the teachers continuously cancelled on me anyway, so that cut my work load down too I think i had 15 classes a week.

Even at its worst (full 23 lessons a week solo teaching (pretty rare in truth)), theres just way less to plan and prepare in japan.

Truth is im not sure why i posted all this, because ESID and all that Actual mileage may vary, its just what i found.

I also have this idea that korean kids are way more innocent and fun based purely on the fact that i teach an all girls middle school where polictics functions completely different than in a co-ed school.

So i should add something objective maybe:

School day in Japan starts from 8.00 to 8.30 but finishes around 4.10. Teachers dont leave until around 7 or 8 because they are freaking insane. If youre a teacher running a club activity, youll be lucky to get holiday time at any point in the year

If youre at middle school (which is what im basing this entire post on), school lunch is the most rancid stuff youll ever put in your body. Kyushokku is FOUL. Unspeakably foul. Food should never ever be grey. It also shouldnt be served by 13 and 14 year old disease bags after being left to sit for three hours before being delivered to the school from some outside catering firm.

Almost everyone in japan desk warms. Admittedly some people get it easier than others (they come in for an hour or two before midday, sign in and then head home), but you still usually have to be in the vicinity.

The exception to that is dispatch ALTs who end up having their august and December salary cut but dont have to turn up at the school when the students are on vacation. Lucky them!

Hagwons are called Ju-ku in japan and theyre staffed for the most part by proper teachers. There is no real hagwon industry so to speak. There is of course eikaiwa, but thats more for 'english as a hobby/lifestyle'. Teaching to the test is very much the stuff of juku and unless you are a proven teacher, its pretty unlikely youll be getting that gig.

Eikaiwa after the nova scandal a few years back, has seen a collapse for the most part. I think another big chain just went belly up, so really English has lost a lot of its desirability and people in japan are starting to see it as the scam that it often is (locked into expensive programmes and text books with little chance of getting your money back if you decide to quit).

Couple that to the recession in the west (thats also hitting japan), and the industry is dying, whilst the competition for positions is fierce. Saying that though, my mate went to japan just the other month to visit his girlfriend and scored a job almost instantly. So feet on the ground and its a different story.

In summary though, heres my honest opinion:

I like korean people WAY more.
I like japan as a place to live WAY more.

Thats really all i should have said

[proverbs]

japan has a lot more cool stuff...but at the same time, it has a lot of reeeally weird stuff.

also, it seems like the cost of living is much higher in japan.