バイリンガル・外国人 求人 情報
募集職種:日本車輸出営業
勤務地：長野県松本市
給与：月給180,000-220,000
ガイジンポット？外人ポット？ NO, It's GaijinPot!!
バイリンガル・外国人 求人 情報
募集職種:国際セールスコーディネーター
勤務地：神奈川県横浜市
給与：月給250,000-500,000
ガイジンポット？外人ポット？ NO, It's GaijinPot!!
バイリンガル・外国人 求人 情報
募集職種:翻訳プロジェクトコーディネーター
勤務地：愛知県名古屋市
給与：月給280,000-380,000
ガイジンポット？外人ポット？ NO, It's GaijinPot!!
Cover Story: Nova fallout
11/08/2007
BY HIROSHI MATSUBARA, STAFF WRITER
With 4,000 Nova Corp. teachers out of work, now is probably the worst possible time to be seeking a job as an English instructor in Japan.
The collapse of the Osaka-based chain of language schools means that hundreds of teachers now apply for every job opening, according to GaijinPot, a popular online job-site for foreign nationals in Japan.
Longtime Nova employees accuse the company of operating under a system that made quitting the company an unpalatable option.
They said Nova specialized in recruiting young, inexperienced university graduates with little or no practical Japanese-speaking ability.
That left many of them ill-prepared to find new jobs outside of, and to an extent, within the teaching industry--hence the current fierce competition for teaching positions.
Nova insiders say the company churned out teachers in much the same way that a fast-food chain produces hamburgers.
English Spot, a school in Higashinari Ward, Osaka, said 400 people applied in October for a single job opening that eventually went to a 26-year-old French national who gained her teaching credentials in Britain and had been working for Nova.
It noted that the vast number of applicants for the job the woman landed were former Nova teachers like her.
The woman said, "I am happy that the school chose me because I know that a lot of people at Nova are in trouble right now."
Her application for the new job stood out because of her track record as a language teacher in Britain, where she taught French and Spanish at a secondary school, said Matt Kelley, owner and director of English Spot.
On Oct. 26, the day she started working at the school, Nova filed for financial reconstruction under court supervision.
G.communication group, a consulting firm based in Nagoya, will reopen at least 30 Nova schools and says it hopes to rehire the Nova staff.
As for Nova's former president, Nozomu Sahashi, he looks set to face criminal charges shortly for failing to pay billions of yen in wages to his employees, sources said.
Some former Nova teachers are in such dire financial straits they are having to rely on their former students to feed them.
Since mid-September when Nova's arrears of payment problems came under the light, the number of job-seekers who posted their resumes at the GaijinPot Web site has increased five-fold, often reaching more than 1,100 new applicants a day.
"As former Nova teachers jump into the ring for fewer English teaching jobs, some employers might develop an attitude that potential employees must be the cream of the crop, with very little enthusiasm in even spending time on interviewing less qualified candidates," said Percy Humphrey, GaijinPot's general manager.
At least 9,000 former and current employees of Nova have registered with the Web site, which offers only around 200 openings.
Since Nova applied for court protection last month, 330 former Nova teachers have visited a specially created counseling corner set up by the Tokyo metropolitan government-run Shinjuku Employment Assistance and Instruction Center for Foreigners.
Their concerns rarely differ: They want advice on unpaid wages, unemployment insurance and new job opportunities. In addition, 500 former Nova teachers have contacted the counselors by phone.
Naoto Moriizumi, a senior official of the Tokyo Labor Bureau in charge of the counseling corner, said the teachers usually arrived in Japan with a visa in "humanities and international services," which allows them to work at jobs requiring fluency in foreign languages.
"Aside from teaching English, there aren't many kinds of jobs to which they can apply without a certain fluency in Japanese," he said. "Even other language schools now want candidates to have conversation-level Japanese, but unfortunately most Nova teachers have not obtained it."
This description certainly fits Schevon Salmon, a 24-year-old American, who was recruited by Nova on the campus of a Florida college two years ago.
Last week, the resident of Tokyo's Taito Ward visited the Shinjuku employment center only to discover he is not eligible for a dozen English-teaching jobs due to his limited proficiency in Japanese.
"It's twice as hard to find jobs in other areas, because you do not have experience or enough familiarity with the language," he said.
Referring to Tuesday's moves to take over some Nova outlets, Salmon said: "That's great news ... but it does little to console the mass of teachers out there who need work.
"Isn't this Japan where your company is like your family and you take care of your company because you know your company will take care of you?"
He said Nova owes him 250,000 yen in unpaid wages.
The bureau estimates that former Nova employees are still owed at least 1.5 billion yen.
Operators of small-sized schools, meantime, expect Nova's collapse will prove to be a windfall in terms of getting new students.
"There's no doubt the Nova debacle must have hurt the image of English schools in Japan as well as Japan's image as a job market outside of Japan," said Kelley of English Spot in Osaka.
"But Japanese people's enthusiasm to learn English remains unchanged and now students are becoming more discerning in choosing schools," he said.
"English schools have to get back to fundamentals that we are here to educate, not just to make profit," he said.(IHT/Asahi: November 8,2007)
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200711080113.html