Korean Job Discussion Forums

northway · Joined: 05 Jul 2010

1) It's well-known fact that immigration has tightened things up a lot. I don't understand why you're operating on the assumption that said tightening has accomplished nothing in terms of changing the numbers. Immigration wasn't particularly stringent about visas before, and as such it's understandable that more teachers would have been here illegally. I don't think it would fly these days.

2) I'm pretty sure I would've noticed if huge numbers of people were heading to Japan or China every three months or so.

3) I'm not denying that there are large numbers of illegal teachers, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say there's no way in hell that it's 50%. Given how many public school and uni teachers there are, and that fact that it's awfully difficult for such teachers to be here illgally, the vast majority of hagwon teachers would have to be here illegally in order for your highly speculative assessment to be correct.

danwom · Joined: 31 May 2011

It seems like this thread has gone tangent from the original post but I'd like to ask a question: What kind of credentials would you need to land a 3.2M job?

Thanks

earthquakez · Joined: 10 Nov 2010

Personally I have found that monocultural countries where immigration is not the norm tend to use 'statistics' as propaganda to keep their countries free of the movement of peoples that is normal in multicultural countries or countries that have real immigration intakes regardless of how low they are compared to western countries' intakes.

What the Urban Myth is forgetting is that it wasn't so long ago that self righteous Immigration offices such as that in Daejon which hounded foreigners and did so fairly recently in posters plastered around warning English teachers 'we are watching you' (a few years back) were noted for corruption. Bribes were normal in the 90s.

While certainly Immigration offices in Korea have cleaned up their acts they are not above misinforming the Korean public and openly lying about the so called problem of English teachers. I'd be surprised if the numbers of 'illegal' teachers are even a quarter of what is claimed. I can't believe the naivety of any foreign teacher who takes all this at face value.

It's like the 'statistics' on foreign English teachers supposedly abusing children etc. When you get to the bottom of it, you find out that the 'foreigners' were mostly Korean teachers, foreigners with Korean ethnicity etc have been the accused or guilty parties more than the standard non Korean ethnicity English teacher.

Given the laws governing alien registration etc which have been strict for foreign English teachers for about a decade or so, it's hard to see how all these so called illegal English teachers are living and working here. Koreans certainly put foreigners under much more intensive surveillance than in Japan for example and the fact that you cannot own your own working visa makes the so called 'statistics' even harder to believe.

As for people supposedly running in and out of the country to teach illegally - in your dreams. Korean Immigration is harsher than that of many countries I've lived and travelled in. It's propaganda and we will hear more of it as the economy gets worse, globalisation increases, and Koreans start to feel more and more xenophobic as they see more foreign faces in their country despite the fact that they feel entitled to live in our countries and not on year to year working visas.

TheUrbanMyth · Joined: 28 Jan 2003 Location: Retired

TheUrbanMyth · Joined: 28 Jan 2003 Location: Retired

northway · Joined: 05 Jul 2010

maladict23 · Joined: 17 May 2011

northway · Joined: 05 Jul 2010

maladict23 · Joined: 17 May 2011

TheUrbanMyth · Joined: 28 Jan 2003 Location: Retired

Netz · Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2011 5:26 am Post subject:

Ahhh..... the randomness of Dave's.

I guess this tthread didn't stray too far, since the OP was using code (F2) for "a warm body", and apparently found one.

You know, I never thought I'd be backing up TUM, but..... in all the time I've been here, easily half of the "teachers" I've met have been illegal. Albeit, most of them were working part time jobs that few people here are actually qualified to take (F visas), it did make them easier to spot.

I have to agree with the numbers that TUM and Immi are giving, based on my own "anecdotal" experience, because even to this day, a large number of people I meet in the ESL biz are working illgally, to one degree (or lack of degree) or another.

If you haven't been here long, or don't get out much, it's easy to dismiss these figures based on your own limited view, but the truth is there has been, is, and probably always will be, a large number of illegals working in ESL here.

Furthermore, as TUM noted, how would you ever really know, unless you saw their passport. The only way you would find out, is to report suspicious activity, and when that person "dissappears", I'd say you have your answer.

Again, this type of thing doesn't happen so much in the full time hagwon/PS circuit, but there's a boatload of PT jobs that practically cater to illegals, and because they are usually with large K Corps, or in the "fringe" area of ESL work, Immi looks the other way, and they have done so for a long, long time.