Financial Crisis Affecting Your Plans Part 2
The financial crisis stemming from the USA continues to have a ripple affect through the global economy. And with no concrete plans for stabilizing the global economy, how will this affect the EFL industry in Asia?
From the schools point of view, public institutions such as public schools and universities will continue to hire foreign teachers. Education through public institutions is not a “luxury” or an “extra curricular”, so the demand for teachers here will probably continue. In addition, although the global economy is on a downturn, English, as a global language, is and will still be a necessity. The schools that are most effected are the private language schools or as they are called in Japan and Korea, eikaiwas and hagwons. These are the “extras” in peoples lives, and as consumer spending is cut down, so will the tuition towards these schools, which are private businesses. If these schools have a tough time of keeping students in the class, then they will have to cut down, and therefore decrease the number of teachers that are hired.
From a teachers point of view, although working for a private language school might give you a higher salary, working in a public institution will give you more stability, and you won’t have to be thinking everyday, “Is the school I work for gonna go under?” Teaching overseas might still be attractive to teachers since the unemployment rate in their home country may be rising, whereas the English language industry continues to have a high demand. It actually might be a good time go travel and live abroad if a teacher does not have any significant responsibilities back home, such as a mortgage payment.
Regarding currency exchange, as of today, November 22 2008, there is quite a disparity between working in Korea and Japan, and then exchanging the money a teacher makes into US dollars. Today, on www.xe.com, if you exchanged a 2.1 million won (typical salary in Korea) into US dollars, the amount would be a bit over $1400.00 US dollars. Where as, if you exchanged 250,000 yen (typical salary in Japan) into US dollars, the amount would be a bit over $2600.00 US dollars. This his a huge difference. Remember, 3 or 4 months ago, the difference may have been just a few hundred dollars. But please remember that this is now, and exchange rates can change dramatically. Although Korea’s economy doesn’t look liks it’s going to improve anytime soon, the strength of the Japanese yen is also not sustainable, so it will probably come down. But I’m not an economist, so don’t take my word for it.
These are just some of my thoughts on the EFL industry and how it is being affected by this financial madness. Please let me know your thoughts.
Tags: crisis, currency, English, exchange, financial, Japan, Korea, Teach
November 25th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
Great article. It is difficult to predict the fluctuations of the world currencies, however they have really taken a tole on the EFL teacher. A related article:
Economic Woes and the EFL Community
http://blog.esldaily.org/2008/10/19/economic-woes-and-the-efl-community-the-concern–part-1.aspx