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1st timers stop paying your own airfare to come here!
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ontheway

Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...

Posted: Thu May 09, 2013 8:50 am Post subject:

wanderkind wrote:

A recruiter recently told me that after July 1st, schools in Korea (E-2 employers, is how I construed that slightly vague term) will no longer be covering return airfare as a standard of compensation for 1 year contracts of employment.

Can anyone comment on this? True, false, somewhere in between?

I'm sorry if this has been hashed and rehashed elsewhere, but as usual, I've been unsuccessful at employing the eslcafe search function in this.

There is a movement and discussion among some hogwan owners, hogwan associations and public school representatives to stop paying return airfare and no longer include it in contracts. If the big chain schools decide to stop, then many smaller schools will likely follow. If the public school hiring groups stop, essentially the biggest of the chain schools, then most would follow. However it is in no way certain at this point what will happen as far as this standard contract benefit is concerned.

TheUrbanMyth

Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired

Posted: Thu May 09, 2013 4:42 pm Post subject:

ontheway wrote:

[]

(1) The truth of the matter is that the majority of hogwans enroll their employees (not legal ICs) for health ins, pension and pay according to the contract. You would know this if you got off Dave's more. If you look around on you may even find some data somewhere as I have. But I will not do your research.

(2) Likewise, after years of this type of whining, BigFella posted a link that showed stats that proved that over half of Korean workers are registered as ICs - which I had read and repeated here and for which I was oft and wrongly attacked. His author with cites proved all that I had been saying.

(3) Now, as to your silly stats. You cannot use a self-selected, biased group as a sample, even if you think you have randomly selected your sample of the group.

(4)The contracts in the Dave's contract thread are not a representative sample of the contracts in Korea. They represent a group that is worried, that has heard of Dave's, and that thinks that there may be something wrong with their contract, so they post it. Those individuals who can tell right away that their contract is good don't bother.

(5)This is akin to the 1936 prediction by the Literary Digest magazine that, after polling its own readers, had concluded that Alf Landon would overwhelmingly win the Presidential election against FDR. Of course, FDR won, Landon got only 36% of the vote, and the embarrassed magazine soon folded.

(numbers are mine for clarification)

1. No one is asking you to do anyone's research. And copy/pasting a link takes only a few seconds. A statement like "I will not do your research" given in this context sounds more like "I have nothing to back up my claims".

2. It proves ONE point that you made which I personally do not recall denying...so I don't know what relevance this has to FOREIGN employees on an IC which is after all the topic.

As for numbers 3&4 you are simply saying 'Because I say they are biased and not representative that makes them so.'
Sorry that doesn't work. Opinion doesn't count.

5. That is a rather poor analogy and has little if any relevance to the issue under discussion.

Last edited by TheUrbanMyth on Thu May 09, 2013 4:44 pm; edited 1 time in total

big_fella1

Joined: 08 Dec 2005

Posted: Thu May 09, 2013 4:44 pm Post subject:

ontheway wrote:

wanderkind wrote:

If a recruiter tells you that its standard to pay the airfare change recruiters or better still bypass the recruiter. Look for jobs that advertise diirectly if you're a newbie and if you're in Korea set up your next job before you leave for your vacation at the end of a contract.

Recruiters are generally parasites especially if the market is as flooded as many recruiters come on here and claim. I can assure you of one thing, if a recruiter tells you that there is no airfare, they will pocket the extra money that you should have received for it.

As to ontheway quoting if the big chains stop airfares then the small ones will this is nonsense. The large chains stoppped using recruiters 5 years ago, but small schools still use recruiters.

Finally consider the good school you want to work at. Do you want to work at a school where they don't even have the English skills to place an ad here, or they're so xenophobic that they only want to do business through a Korean intermediary?

Last edited by big_fella1 on Thu May 09, 2013 7:23 pm; edited 1 time in total

augustine

Joined: 08 Sep 2012
Location: México

Posted: Thu May 09, 2013 6:33 pm Post subject:

ontheway wrote:

There is a movement and discussion among some hogwan owners, hogwan associations and public school representatives to stop paying return airfare and no longer include it in contracts.

Listen to this f-ing guy... I said five pages ago that he's a recruiter or has something to gain financially for spouting the BS he keeps throwing up here and him and homer Chris laughed at that concept. I don't even think ontheway lives in Korea, so how does he have access to "insider" hagwon association information? The guy is a straight up spinster and he doesn't even try to disguise it.

Do yourselves a favor: ALWAYS ignore ontheway, and NEVER work for a hagwon.

CPJ

Joined: 30 Dec 2008

Posted: Thu May 09, 2013 9:17 pm Post subject:

I too have heard that Busan hagwon association or whatever they are called is talking about killing the ticket going home. My director asked me about it and I let him know it wasn't a good idea. I have no idea if it is a reality or not but it seems so many schools are cutting costs these days. We used to have 5 western teachers at our school and now we are running with 4. As for NEVER work for a hagwon, that would seem pretty unrealistic for most of us. I mean, where are we supposed to work? And I think there are a lot of us out here that want to work at a hagwon. If this website was my only source of information, I would feel that most hagwon jobs sucked. Finding a good hagwon must mean that I lucked out. Being in Busan for as long as I've been, I see a completely different reality. Maybe the people that work at the crap hagwons never go out? I don't know? But most people that I meet in town are at least ok with the jobs they have. Many really like it. They get paid, they get the apartment and other things they were promised. There are bad jobs out there I am sure but nowhere near as frequent as it is made to be. Most complaints I hear about the job have more to do with a teacher's inexperience or inability to teach or manage the classroom.

Weigookin74

Joined: 26 Oct 2009

Posted: Fri May 10, 2013 2:32 am Post subject:

Well considering that the hakwon owners have capped wages at 2.0 to 2.1 for the last few years, I think they already have a benefit and are saving money. They don't have to kill flights, unless they will pay more monthly salary to compensate. I'd tell folks to refuse those who don't pay flights, as I've already mentioned. But, perhaps, the bad economic conditions may let those greedy pr!ks get away with it. Considering how much money a hakwon owner makes. Hakwon owners will cut flights permanently if stupid Westerners agree to it by accepting. I applied to Japan many years ago and they told me to pay my own flight. They got the finger and Korea got me. The rest is history.

PatrickGHBusan

Joined: 24 Jun 2008
Location: Busan (1997-2008) Canada 2008 -

Posted: Fri May 10, 2013 4:47 am Post subject:

augustine wrote:

ontheway wrote:

There is a movement and discussion among some hogwan owners, hogwan associations and public school representatives to stop paying return airfare and no longer include it in contracts.

I have no idea if ontheway is a recruiter or not. I do not know him. He does make statements that are a bit too sunny and candy for my tastes.

As for me augustine, I am not a recruiter and my previous post explained that clearly. Still, I doubt that will stop you from making silly accusations and insinuations because it seems to be a past time for you. Laughing

ontheway

Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...

Posted: Fri May 10, 2013 7:53 am Post subject:

wanderkind wrote:

CPJ wrote:

I too have heard that Busan hagwon association or whatever they are called is talking about killing the ticket going home. My director asked me about it and I let him know it wasn't a good idea. I have no idea if it is a reality or not but it seems so many schools are cutting costs these days.

As you can see, this idea is now in current discussion all over Korea. Recruiters, hogwan owners, hogwan directors, Korean hogwan teachers are all discussing this potential plan - and E2 teachers who talk to any of the above in a friendly, non-adversarial way, or anyone in Korea who has a large group of Korean or E2 teacher or Fvisa friends should have heard about this development.

Mailings have been sent out to thousands of people about this, the whole industry is aware, so the concept is well developed. That means that the actual planning cabal stage of this change must be many months old; probably this has been brewing since sometime in 2012.

What this means is that if anyone of the whiners here knew anything about what was actually happening in the real world, he or she would have heard about this. It is no secret. So, of course, I've heard it as well.

augustine wrote:

ontheway wrote:

There is a movement and discussion among some hogwan owners, hogwan associations and public school representatives to stop paying return airfare and no longer include it in contracts.

You are the perfect example of the kind of angry, aggressive, friendless deviant, unfit for any job, who washes up in Korea from time to time. You will never have a clue as to what is happening because no one will talk to you or inform you. We hear from people like you from time to time on Dave's, complaining that their school doesn't keep them informed ... not realizing that they are out of the loop because no one wants to be near them long enough to tell them anything.

BigFella1 wrote:

When looking for a job in Korea you should use as many recruiters as you can stand, because they will have access to many of the best jobs that are not available elsewhere, but you should also respond to ads directly as they may not be available through recruiters and you should post your resume here on Dave's (and other sites, sorry Dave) as many employers will look on here and on other sites to find their own workers. Then weigh your options and take the best job.

BigFella1 wrote:

Recruiters are generally parasites ...

^ This I agree with.

BigFella1 wrote:

... especially if the market is as flooded as many recruiters come on here and claim. I can assure you of one thing, if a recruiter tells you that there is no airfare, they will pocket the extra money that you should have received for it.

If a recruiter tells you there is no airfare, then you can be sure, unless that recruiter is misinformed, that there is no airfare. Recruiters want to induce everyone to make a deal so that they can get their commission. They will overpromise and oversell, sometimes they will lie, they will even occasionally give different contracts to the teachers from the contract sent to them by the school - whatever it takes to make the deal. So, the recruiter will not lie and tell you there is no airfare when there is, that could cost them a deal.

As to who will "pocket" the airfare if this proposal actually becomes the norm, it will not be the recruiters, it will be the schools that no longer pay return airfare, or the Korean government if the public schools no longer pay return airfare. This change would make the job of recruiters harder and they would get none of the financial benefit.

When it comes to what a recruiter tells you verbally, don't accept it without verification. Talk to someone directly at the school. Talk to another teacher - a current foreign teacher, a recent former foreign teacher ... And read your contract carefully.

BigFella1 wrote:

As to ontheway quoting if the big chains stop airfares then the small ones will this is nonsense. The large chains stoppped using recruiters 5 years ago, but small schools still use recruiters.

I didn't "quote" anything. Are you unable to read, unable to comprehend, or unable to write coherent comments?

What I did was explain just how this proposal could go into effect, should a large number of schools actually attempt to implement this plan.

BigFella1 wrote:

Finally consider the good school you want to work at. Do you want to work at a school where they don't even have the English skills to place an ad here, or they're so xenophobic that they only want to do business through a Korean intermediary?

By "place an ad here" I presume that you mean Dave's, by which you somehow think that this would be a good or maybe the best place to search for a teacher. Many schools obviously don't agree with that, so they don't place ads here. English language ability is not relevant to such a decision.

Likewise, use of an "intermediary", Korean or otherwise, is especially sound for the acquisition of things that the consumer is not expert at providing for himself. That's why most people buy food, buy electricity and buy water for example ... and use recruiters.

Yes, some of the large chains (but not most of them) do have departments to find and hire their own teachers so they don't use recruiters, however most big chains and the public schools use recruiters because this gives them access to a larger pool of applicants. It is the same reason that teachers and other job seekers use recruiters - it gives them access to a larger pool of employers.

For the smaller schools that are not part of a chain, where turnover is light, it makes sense to use recruiters on those rare occasions when they have an open spot. They are not geared up to run ads in multiple locations and do not have staff dedicated to finding a large pool of applicants to choose from. Recruiters can give them a large selection of candidates at lower cost than the cost of manpower and advertising necessary to fill one job every year or two.

Recruiters may suck (my opinion) but they are a necessary evil to be used, but with caution.

ontheway

Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...

Posted: Fri May 10, 2013 8:11 am Post subject:

ontheway wrote:

wanderkind wrote:

There is a movement and discussion among some hogwan owners, hogwan associations and public school representatives to stop paying return airfare and no longer include it in contracts.

If the big chain schools decide to stop, then many smaller schools will likely follow. If the public school hiring groups stop, essentially the biggest of the chain schools, then most would follow.

However it is in no way certain at this point what will happen as far as this standard contract benefit is concerned.

This potential development is probably worth having its own thread. As I said, it is in no way clear what will happen.

Will a large number of schools attempt to end the tradition of paying return airfare? Will some of the large chains lead they way? Have a number of schools or some of the large chains already agreed to do this? How far along is this plan? These are some of the questions I have about this.

Since several people have heard about this, from a variety of locations and a variety of sources, we know that it is a serious proposal. Since I'm already in Korea, it has no affect on me personally, but it's an interesting market development to follow.

Anyone here can predict whether or not this will fly, but no one knows what will actually happen with this in the future, at this point in time. It is, however, an idea that is underway. I wouldn't have expected the typical beginning salary for E2 visas to fall from the 2.3 to 2.5 million range in 2008 back the 2.1 - 2.3 range where we are now, so while I might want to predict that this won't happen, I have an inkling that it just might go into effect and the schools will still have enough applicants to fill their teaching jobs.

ontheway

Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...

Posted: Fri May 10, 2013 8:22 am Post subject:

TheUrbanMyth wrote:

ontheway wrote:

(numbers are mine for clarification)

As for numbers 3&4 you are simply saying 'Because I say they are biased and not representative that makes them so.'
Sorry that doesn't work. Opinion doesn't count.

5. That is a rather poor analogy and has little if any relevance to the issue under discussion.

Actually, what I gave you was a perfect analogy. What you are doing is using self selected participants instead of random participants. It's exactly the same. It's similar to the problem with internet polls that don't include people off the net.
No math teacher would agree with you. This is not a matter of my opinion, but a matter of standard statistical procedure.

You cannnot use the Dave's contract thread as a representative group because it is self selected:

1) Individuals who are worried about their contracts post them. Those who know they have a good contract don't.

2) Then, those whose contracts seem OK may take the job, while bad contracts will appear repeatedly because they are frequently turned down.

3) Finally, those contracts that are bad and represent bad schools will tend to be jobs with higher turnover, hence those contracts will reappear with greater frequency.

As a result, the weighting toward the bad contracts is likely to be many times (given the factors, 10 to 20 times) their actual occurrence.
.

ontheway

Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...

Posted: Fri May 10, 2013 8:32 am Post subject:

PatrickGHBusan wrote:

augustine wrote:

ontheway wrote:

There is a movement and discussion among some hogwan owners, hogwan associations and public school representatives to stop paying return airfare and no longer include it in contracts.

I am an E2 teacher in Korea. Not a recruiter and not a hogwan owner. I do not paint any picture that is either sunnier or darker than the reality. Many posters on here are dysfunctional, biased or uneducated in the use of methodologies they attempt to defend.

As to you, Patrick, I'm sure you are sincere, and I always enjoy and appreciate your respectful and well reasoned posts, even when I don't agree.

augustine

Joined: 08 Sep 2012
Location: México

Posted: Fri May 10, 2013 9:27 am Post subject:

Quote:

As for me augustine, I am not a recruiter and my previous post explained that clearly. Still, I doubt that will stop you from making silly accusations and insinuations because it seems to be a past time for you.

A past time? Nah, I just said your opinions were suspect. I believe you when you say you're not a recruiter, but you have said that you do business with Korea from your spot in Canada. Whatever that means, I don't know; but I don't think anyone should rule you out for having biases in such matters since you routinely take an "apologist" angle on issues and post here just about every day, even though you haven't lived in Korea for five years. I think many more people than myself wonder why you're still posting here.

Quote:

Is that so? I'm an angry, aggressive, friendless deviant, unfit for any job, who washes up in Korea? You're as wrong as one could be, but since you suppose so much about me, why don't you inform myself and others about how you are different than your summation of I, augustine, an anonymous entity you know nothing about? What do you do, ontheway? I think more than a few people here would like to know.

No, I don't work at a hagwon and never would (again). I work at a public school, as an after school teacher and I'll be going back home to attend grad school soon. I'm making an honest post about myself, so why won't you be honest with me and other posters who are curious about your motives? What do you do?

ontheway

Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...

Posted: Fri May 10, 2013 11:15 am Post subject:

augustine wrote:

... What do you do, ontheway? I think more than a few people here would like to know.

No, I don't work at a hagwon and never would (again). I work at a public school, as an after school teacher and I'll be going back home to attend grad school soon. I'm making an honest post about myself, so why won't you be honest with me and other posters who are curious about your motives? What do you do?

^
^
^
psst ... up there ^ ... see it ... above your latest rant ...

Read.

Before you write. Just read.
Before you talk, listen.
This is how I know about you, probably more than you know about yourself.

Look. Right above your own post.
... open your eyes, and read.

PatrickGHBusan

Joined: 24 Jun 2008
Location: Busan (1997-2008) Canada 2008 -

Posted: Fri May 10, 2013 2:56 pm Post subject:

Quote:

past time? Nah, I just said your opinions were suspect. I believe you when you say you're not a recruiter, but you have said that you do business with Korea from your spot in Canada. Whatever that means, I don't know; but I don't think anyone should rule you out for having biases in such matters since you routinely take an "apologist" angle on issues and post here just about every day, even though you haven't lived in Korea for five years. I think many more people than myself wonder why you're still posting here.

1- As stated my business with Korea is NON ESL related. It has nothing to do with education at all. My public sector job deals with Asia (Korean being part of the AOR). My consulting agency is hired by client companies to train employees who will be sent abroad (to Asia or to Canada) and centers on inter-cultural training (look that up if it confuses you).

2- I go to Korea every year and have tons of friends there, professional contacts, family.

3- I post here mainly to help newbies when I can, mostly through pm. I also enjoy a few threads here from time to time. Finally, I respond to some of the things I find to be grossly inaccurate because I feel they are a disservice to other teachers and contain false information.

4- My only involvement in recruiting happened when I worked for a University and was for a few years on their hiring committee. As such, I worked with the committee when the University needed to hire someone. We did NOT deal with recruiters for this.

All better now Augustine?

Now lets play your game...

Augustine, since you stated you are going home soon to attend grad school, what are YOUR motives for posting here?

augustine

Joined: 08 Sep 2012
Location: México

Posted: Fri May 10, 2013 7:24 pm Post subject:

Quote:

I post here mainly to help newbies

Psf, yeah right. I don't care about all the PMs you may claim to send, I'd say well over 90% of your posts are NOT aimed to help newbies.

Quote:

All better now Augustine?

Now lets play your game...

Augustine, since you stated you are going home soon to attend grad school, what are YOUR motives for posting here?

Yeah, it's all good. Hmm, why do I post here? Probably because I actually live in Korea and want to know what's going on and inquire and talk about the situation here. I'd still like to know one thing... Patrick/Chris has always, apparently, held an omnipresence on this board, has tons of friends in Korea, and is as connected as they come... but has anyone here ever met him? I've never heard about anyone who actually met this guy. I'd imagine they'd have nothing but glowing things to say about him if they did.

-----

Quote:

I am an E2 teacher in Korea. Not a recruiter and not a hogwan owner.

Are you serious? And you've been teaching here for, what, seven or eight years? And nearly all of your posts are blatantly either pro-hagwon or sticking up for hagwons that give independent contractor status? That's beyond pathetic.

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