Korean Job Discussion Forums

[matthews_world]

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/national/Beijing-raises-hiring-standard-for-foreign-employees/shdaily.shtml

Beijing has raised it's minimum hiring standard to 5 years experience for teachers in the ESL industry. The article doesn't say when these won't go into effect.

What the goverment fails to recognize, however, is that teachers with 5 years experience would much frown on how their marginalized contracts with increased working hours over the years and the same or sometimes lower pay set by the government would attract us.

They did up the retirement age to 65 so hopefully they might make some sort of visa such as the F-299 for us who see China as long term.

In China, if one has a marriage visa, they still need a professional certificate to work. These two visas in China are not connected so getting married in China and finding work isn't an option.

[schwa]

That could be the beginning of a tide change.

But the article only refers to "the Beijing municipal government," not "the Chinese government."

[Edit to add: you quickly reworded your post. Not so sensational when you stick to facts.]

[Sector7G]

Perverbial?

[Died By Bear]

[creeper1]

Beijing, my friend, in not China. China is a big country and, let me tell you from experience, there are all sorts here working as English teachers.
Nigerians, Romanians etc etc.

No need to panic. Why would you want to come to Beijing anyway? There is really bad pollution here.

[Sector7G]

[wonkavite62]

This might be the thin end of the wedge-or then again it might not. One of the things I believed about ESL (up to 2010) was that demand in places like China and South Korea was high, partly because there were not enough teachers to go round. Certainly that would be true when U.S. unemployment is low. But the great recession changed this. I left Korea because I found (a) the public schools were really cutting back on staff (b) hagwons especially in Seoul discriminate and exclude teachers for silly reasons and (c) the only available jobs were in small towns on the east coast, or islands. That was my experience. If China is now tightening up controls so much, that may be because they believe a limited supply of teachers has now become an inexhaustible flood in Beijing. So recruiters can play games, cherry pick and so on. If they get too demanding and put up too many barriers then some people may question the value of working abroad in the first place. After all it COSTS MONEY to get here, and we are often taking a risk by coming abroad. Under certain circumstances, teaching in a high school in the U.K. would begin to seem more attractive than working abroad.

[ttompatz]

Demand for NES teachers in most of China outstrips supply by an order of magnitude.

The only 2 places in mainland China where there is an excess of "teachers" and they can afford to be picky is Beijing and Shanghai.

For just about everywhere else in the country they will take what they can find and there are more than a fair few cases of "teachers" with nothing more than a high school diploma and a Photoshopped TEFL cert.

.

[aq8knyus]

[Sector7G]

[radcon]

[edwardcatflap]

So Beijing isn't China, Shanghai isn't China and of course Hong Kong and Taiwan aren't China. Is there anywhere people in the West might have heard of that can be categorized as China these days?

[Stain]

I think matthews world brings up an interesting point. Bejing may not really be China as we understand it. It's certainly not a reflection of the country as a whole. Same can be said for New York. However, Seoul is probably closer to an accurate overall description.

[Sector7G]

[matthews_world]

1. Sorry about the misuse of the word.
2. Couldn't fit Beijing in the title header.

Carry on.