Number of English teachers entering Korea drops to third of pre-pandemic levels

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Number of English teachers entering Korea drops to third of pre-pandemic levels

A native English instructor teaches her students in Daegu, southern Korea. [YEUNGJIN UNIVERSITY]

A native English instructor teaches her students in Daegu, southern Korea. [YEUNGJIN UNIVERSITY]

The number of English teachers coming to Korea for jobs dropped to a third of pre-pandemic levels.
 
There were 10,515 E-2 visa carriers that passed through Korea's immigration last year, down 64 percent from the figure in 2019, according to the statistics from the Korea Immigration Service as of December.
 
E-2 visa is a long-term visa issued for foreign language instructors.
 
The number had dropped to 11,326 in 2020 with the spread of Covid-19 and further down to 5,376 in 2021 before seeing some recovery.
 
Foreign instructors are high in demand especially in hagwon, or private cram schools.
 
The number of native English instructors for elementary, middle and high schools across the country dropped 30 percent to 7,150 from 10,169 in 2019, according to the Korean Educational Development Institutie's statistics.
 
"We had enough foreign instructors in 2019, but over 10 percent of open positions were left vacant in 2022," said a spokesperson for the National Institute for International Education (NIIED) under the Education Ministry. NIIED recruits locals from overseas and assigns them to schools in Korea.
 
The institute is looking into a possible correlation between the reduced number of native-speaking instructors and the unemployment rate in the United States.
 
The unemployment rate in the United States in December was 3.5 percent, which was the lowest since the 1960s, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Three U.S. instructors who were recently recruited by NIIED decided not to come to Korea because they found jobs at the United States.
 
"There are less motives for them to work in Korea because they are able to find a job right after finishing college in the strong U.S. labor market," said Michael Kim, chief consultant of a recruiting agency for native English instructors located in Seocho District, southern Seoul.
 

BY LEE GA-RAM [sohn.dongjoo@joongang.co.kr]
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