This past weekend has seen a lot of money change hands, and a lot of people lose their jobs. According to every report that’s coming out of CNN and the Wall Street Journal, this isn’t over, either.

Despite the fact that so many financial institutions across America and Europe are posting record losses or going out of business, the market in Japan hasn’t been affected too much. Sure, there are pessimists who are saying that Japan is in a recession due to slowing sales, but this isn’t because of what’s happening in America. It’s because of the time of year. This slow-down has been seen every two years around the summer and fall seasons, and typically sticks around until February. Whether this will continue to be the case, however, is not exactly clear.

Aside from all this, one thing is definitely certain: the big Japanese companies are going to be losing some big money in the near future, and this means that there will be fewer people sent to English-speaking countries through employee-exchange programs. As a result of fewer international postings, there will be fewer people sent to study English and other languages. This means that there is a real concern in the language-instruction industry here in Japan as many people are now finding themselves to be sitting idle for too many hours a day.

English teachers in Japan are a dime a dozen. Other-Language teachers are not so common, but there are certainly a fair number of them available in the larger cities. Will we all be able to keep our cushy jobs in this ever-competitive market? Will language schools continue to seek out more foreigners to fill their ranks, or will they start to ask more from the ones currently employed? Only time will tell, but it has quite a few people worried.

Looking at the Trends

Now that September is in full swing, and people are getting back into their 10-month routine of working while impatiently waiting for summer, the number of language teacher positions has dropped significantly. This is to be expected, of course, as any respectable organization would have made their hires in July or August, with the hopes of having people trained and ready to go for the start of September. However, unlike in previous years, the number of open positions this year had dropped significantly.

In 2003, there were approximately 8,000 language positions open between the months of June and August. In 2004 this number increased to 9,000. 2005 and 2006 saw increases to 11,000 and 12,500 respectively *, while 2007 saw a slight drop due to the impending doom of Nova. After that company’s demise, tens of thousands of foreign people were left out of work and had very few options available to them. Some companies tried to pick up the better teachers, but this put the remaining education centers in a pretty tight spot as they tried to find enough work to keep everyone busy and making money in an industry the general public had lost faith in.

As the months wore on, the full effect of the Nova collapse made itself apparent as fewer people came into the various language schools and instead started looking for discount packages online or through language exchanges. To combat this sudden drop, several schools started offering contract discounts of anywhere from 10-40%, which has cut into the bottom line by such a margin that regular staff are being put on reduced hours of laid off in order for the company to make ends meat. Several of the smaller schools are earning just enough to get by thanks to juicy contracts with the local elementary and high schools, but these will soon dry up as the Ministry of Education continues to make changes to how the ALT and JET programs will operate. Larger schools, on the other hand, are busy considering how many part-time teachers to keep and what new lesson packages they can offer their bigger customers in an effort to remain afloat during this period of financial instability.

Is It Really So Bad?

Luckily, I am not part of my company’s sales team, so I don’t know just how well my employer is doing at the moment. If I did, I might be sweating bullets as the number of available customers continues to dry up as fast as spilt water in the Sahara. My own contract is coming up and, while I don’t think I’ll be asked to work less hours or for less money, I am concerned about what the future holds. Reiko and I are still discussing some of our upcoming big purchases, and we’ve been looking at houses with the intentions to buy one in the next five to seven years. In order for any of this to go through, though, I’ll need to be at least 90% confident that I’ll have work during this time. While I’d love to get back into freelance programming at some point in the future as a primary source of income, I’m nowhere near where I need to be for that to happen.

So what does this mean for the foreign language teachers in Japan? It means that we need to start thinking about our options, and making sure that we have enough money saved up should something occur in the next twelve to fourteen months. The questions we need to ask ourselves are these:

  • If I don’t have enough work with my current employer between now and 2010, can I get work elsewhere?
  • Is my Japanese strong enough to allow me to work at a Japanese company as a translator or a bilingual assistant?
  • Do I have enough money to survive for a few months without work?

Some people may have the option of flying home and starting life over again there, but many might not find this prospect very attractive. It takes a great deal of effort to live and work in another country, and many of us have put in countless hours at government offices, embassies and consulates just to make sure that we’re on the level and following all the little rules necessary to have a little fun in our new home nations. On top of this, how many people have decided to call Japan home for the rest of their lives? While I don’t hate Canada, I certainly would not look forward to pulling up roots yet again to move Reiko and I there for something like a severe employment drought. Not yet, anyway. Give me another five or six years here first.

Considering Our Options

Judging from the reports in the news, and the current state of Japan’s larger organizations, this is certainly going to be a big challenge for every language school in Japan. Sure, some of the more established institutions will manage to find ways of cutting costs without interfering too much with their customers’ needs, but this isn’t going to be the case for some of the smaller schools or sole-proprietorships. While the coming months will bring more than a fair share of troubles for people all over the country, there are some great opportunities out there for anyone that is willing to put in the effort.

One of the options that I’m particularly fond of is to work (even part time) for an employment services company. There’s no doubt that many foreigners will turn to places like Addeco and Human to help them find some line of work should the economy shrink too much. If a bilingual (or multilingual) individual were to work at a place like this, then an employment agency would have the opportunity to bring in even more potential revenue. This is, of course, assuming that the person seeking some temporary work was able to speak the minimum amount of Japanese required to work in a factory or some other line of work in Japan.

Another potential consideration would be somewhere in the services industry. Be it a concierge, hotel support staff, call center, tourist destination or whatever. So long as you can get to a place that may require your ability to speak to foreign visitors, you may just find yourself with a stable job in adverse times.

That said, it’s now becoming even more important that we treat any future employment as a “real job.” We’ve all met several people who have viewed language instruction as some sort of “working holiday”, never putting any real effort into the position and wasting considerable amounts of people’s time as the months and years wear on. Within an ever shrinking economy, and a fiercely competitive job market, there’s no room for laziness. The nice thing about this is that many of us will have the opportunity to show many companies that foreigners are not all lazy people who seek to do the minimum amount of work for the maximum amount of money.

Well … let’s hope so.

The next few years could be quite difficult for millions of foreigners all over the world who will find themselves passed over in favor of the local population. But, with diligence and the drive to succeed, we can come out of this recession with some great work experience and a better understanding of the language. I, for one, will certainly do my best to make the best of whatever life might throw in the coming months. So, on that note, it’s time to get back to studying Japanese.

What do you think of the coming economic hiccup? How do you plan on getting through the worst of it should you find yourself jobless?

* rough statistics came from a report I had read a few months ago on one of the Japanese employment boards. I’ll add a link as soon as I can find it again :???: