The McJob of Asia

By Lisa Gay

I remember talking to a friend before I was supposed to begin teaching English here in Japan. “Don’t fool yourself,” he said. “Anyone can do this job—it’s the McJob of Asia.” Not the sort of advice a young graduate is going to take seriously, but after a few years in the game, I’m starting to see where he was coming from.

Teaching English in Japan was never dignified—nor was it ever going to be, with “genkiness” prized over “professionalism”—but at least it was well-compensated. Yet with Japan’s lost decade extending way past the 10-year mark, English teachers are feeling the recessional tug. Where once the JET program supplied public schools all over Japan with a fresh crop of graduates every year, now there’s a bleak landscape of dispatch companies feeding off the bloated body of government-run JET and cutting every corner (and labor law) they can. McJobs? It was once just a mildly funny joke. Now it’s a way of life for many Westerners trying to make a living teaching English.

Dispatch companies are a great deal for cash-strapped Board of Educations (BOEs). Not only can BOEs have native English speakers in local schools for a lower cost than either hiring privately or using the JET program, but the draining task of dealing with a crop of largely non-Japanese-speaking foreigners is farmed out to someone else. The BOEs save time and money; the act of hiring, firing and training recruits falls to the dispatches.

But for those of us employed by one of these dispatch companies, the difference is astounding. Forget the luxury of free airfares and subsidized housing—de rigueur even for jobs in South Korea. These days, most teachers do without health insurance, pension plans and unemployment insurance. Dispatch higher-ups will tell you this is because instructors work part-time hours. But with most teachers starting at 8 a.m. and working until 4 p.m., their excuses ring hollow. This situation is a clear violation of Japanese labor standards, but BOEs pass the buck, and dispatch companies laugh all the way to the bank.

The backwards regression doesn’t stop there. My own recent experience with a dispatch company left me working on a tourist visa for nearly three months. It’s a serious offense to be caught working without a proper visa, but my company told me it wasn’t a problem; it is common practice and I shouldn’t worry about it. But that didn’t change the fact it was illegal, and I dreaded approaching anyone who looked remotely like a police officer.

And let’s not forget it isn’t just about teachers getting screwed out of a decent salary. The students also get a bum deal. In a special report that ran on the Nippon News Network last summer, a panel of parents and students were interviewed about their English classes. One boy said that he had had as many as seven or eight teachers in one year, and another girl who had no less than four teachers said it was hard to make a connection with English instructors because they were constantly streaming in and out of school. The revolving door mentality of a McJob is rearing its ugly head.

When I was introduced at my local BOE just three months ago, the staff expressed hope that my fellow teachers and I would stay with them for many years. But if that was their goal, then they’re really clueless. They’ve provided no incentive to stay: my starting salary will never increase, and I’ll never get the full-time benefits mandated by law. I have been made to feel interchangeable and disposable. And I am: if I quit, there will be many other eager applicants waiting for my job.

If the BOEs really wanted to keep teachers around long-term, the first thing to do would be to increase private hires. But this can’t be done without the government enforcing labor legislation that’s already on the books. As it stands, the bidding system that many BOEs use to dish out contracts makes the dispatch companies that actually do follow the law uncompetitive. And so the downward spiral continues.

The heyday of the JET program is waning, and the good old times aren’t coming back. To be sure, JET had its problems—it was difficult to fire bad teachers, and good teachers couldn’t be retained for more than five years. Dispatch companies were supposed to fix these problems, but instead, they are adding to them. When you have four different English teachers in a school year, it’s a problem. When you have seven? It’s a complete failure on the part of the Japanese school system.

Lisa Gay works as an English teacher at a dispatch somewhere in Japan.

This story originally appeared in Metropolis magazine (www.metropolis.co.jp).

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Latest 15 of 35 Total Comments Show All

Yelnats at 03:50 PM JST - 1st October

By law everyone has to get national health insurance. Go to your ward office and apply. And since your salary is so low, your monthly cost will be really low. It is based on wages.
gogogo at 04:54 PM JST - 1st October

McJob is kind of wrong, you'll get paid 3500-5000 yen an hour. I agree that genkiness over skills is favored, Japanese students want gaijins like the stereotypical they see on TV.
noborito at 06:07 PM JST - 1st October

Yelnats, According to Interac "no they don't" Interac hires more ALT's in Japan than any other. And they don't pay into the National Premium. The put their teachers on Global Health.
Soochi at 06:57 PM JST - 1st October

So is a "backwards regression" a progression?
movieguy at 08:26 PM JST - 1st October

Because I'm one of the lucky ones, I'll be honest and include my salary information here, but before I do I have to ask if it is cheaper for BOEs to hire through dispatch companies???

Our school uses a dispatch company only because we couldn't find a teacher for only four classes. That being said it costs more to use the dispatch company than to hire directly and our school pays salaries even to part-time teachers based on their teaching hours. If they teach 10 classes a week they are paid for 10 classes a week regardless of holidays, school events or vacations.

OK... The information I'm giving about my salary isn't to brag, but to show that there are some schools that don't discriminate, but I do realize these jobs are almost impossible to land. Just for the record I answered the ad for my school in one of the major English daily newspapers.

This is my 5th year at the Jr./Sr. high school and my take home pay each month is about 395,000 after taxes and my school pays for health insurance and pension according to the law. My summer bonus this year was 690,000 Yen after taxes and last year my winter bonus was 1.2 million Yen after taxes.

Like I said, I'm one of the lucky ones and I post these numbers out here so people can see what the dispatch companies are doing to teachers because the government refuses to police these agencies. What they should be doing is requiring BOEs to hire directly.

By the way, I'm a real teacher and have a MS in Education.
Blacklabel at 09:07 PM JST - 1st October

I just dont know what people expect from all of this. 250,000-300,000 yen can be $20 an hour or so depending on how many hours are worked. How much more do you expect to make doing a job that has no requirement other than having a college degree in SOMEthing (not even English) and for a job that has no specialized skill requirements or certifications that you must have?

Sounds good to me to make that much, a lot of unemployed people out there who would be happy to make that $20/hr while needing no other skill than to be able to speak their native language in front of others? If you have special skills that you think you should be making more, then go out there and find a job that pays that, this type of job is not for you.
TumbleDry at 11:05 PM JST - 1st October

huh!? get a real job then...
Suzu1 at 05:08 AM JST - 4th October

How serious can you take the opinion of someone who starts off declaring that "Teaching English in Japan was never dignified" and goes on to bemoan her choice of coming to Japan to teach English? Ms. Gay does not exactly seem like a go-getter who is going to make her way in the world through good times and bad. Instead it is the persective of Entitlement.
How much money and benefits do you expect employers to pay someone to teach English conversation? Teaching English conversations is not a bad idea for someone fresh out of school who wants to see a different part of the world and perhaps save some money for the next step in their life. Beyond a couple of years it is time to move on and get into something more permanent like Movieguy who seems to be doing well for himself and isn't full of angst about his career choice.
MASSWIPE at 10:27 AM JST - 4th October

Lisa, so your friend tells you that teaching English is the "McJob of Asia" before you even go there, but you do it anyway, and after a FEW YEARS you're still in "the game", as you call it. Why? And what game are you talking about? Spending several years of your life doing a job that is the college graduate's equivalent of scanning groceries is definitely NOT a game.

Except maybe for university jobs, anyone with outside interests and motivation should approach English teaching the way US policymakers perhaps should have approached the war in Iraq--go in with a timetable and an exit strategy, and stick to them.
unrested at 08:50 AM JST - 5th October

McJob is kind of wrong, you'll get paid 3500-5000 yen an hour. I agree that genkiness over skills is favored, Japanese students want gaijins like the stereotypical they see on TV.

ummm....yeah you obviously have never worked for one of the big name dispatch companies before. 3500-5000 yen an hour? let me know which dispatch company pays that much and i will be happy to sign up.
tmarie at 07:34 PM JST - 5th October

Plenty pay that - business dispatch - CES, Phoenix,... Generally you need to have at least a CELTA and some business experience though. Which means the folks like the writer are still shite out of luck...
almondjoy at 09:32 AM JST - 7th October

Im an ALT at a JHS. I make 235,000, have plenty of holidays (paid, half for summer, which is 6 weeks), use my free time to study for the JLPT 2kyu or 1kyu ( 1kyu looks quite beastly though ). I'ts a good job to have while getting yourself ready for something else, not a career choice though.
Badsey at 03:21 AM JST - 8th October

calling your work a "McJob" is insulting to the workers of McDonald's --> those people actually have training and are "skilled."

-Do you want fries with that?
Goodguy at 12:15 AM JST - 10th October

Seriously, if she doesn't like teaching, she has 2 options,

1) go home 2) get a better job
dracpoo2 at 03:23 PM JST - 14th October

JET is not that bad....when I think of what this same job would be worth in my home counry. I also manage to get through to my kids without being overly genki....they just have to accept that I am different from the others they have had, but that I still have alot to offer. Less 'genkiness' plus professionalism plus genuine care gets me the same results as a 'super genki'. As stated by almondjoy....never a career choice.