South Korea helps young emigrate, Singapore wants them back

Times are hard for young job seekers in South Korea. So hard, in fact, that the government is now helping them find work overseas.

The real unemployment rate among South Korea’s twentysomethings is 20 percent, so the government is searching abroad for 30,000 internships and 50,000 jobs for its beleaguered youth.

Launched in 2008, the Global Leadership Development Program uses public funds to help young people develop the skills and language ability required by a foreign employer.

In December, I visited the privately-run IVY Academy in Seoul, a technical college that trains youngsters on behalf of the government-affiliated Human Resources Development Service. Its walls inside were plastered with photos of successful alumni.

“Why do you want to work in Qatar? Please tell me in English—and speak with confidence,” declared an instructor.

I had dropped in on a class for students seeking work in Doha, the Qatari capital, as ground staff for Qatar Airways.

The instructor was an ex-airline worker and had the students rattling off their sales pitches in English.

One student present was 29-year-old An Ji-Myung. After university, he found work at an agricultural nonprofit organization, but got worn down there by endless nagging from a boss to “do better than this” and he resigned.

He used the last of his savings to attend a one-year English conversation course in the Philippines—and then applied to the government program.

An pays 300,000 won (25,000 yen, or $280) of his 2 million won tuition fees, and the government shoulders the rest.

He is optimistic for the future and says once he gains experience in Qatar he plans to secure work in Europe.

Over 80 percent of all South Koreans go to university, but less than 60 percent of these graduates are currently finding work.

Things were particularly tough after the currency crisis in 1997, when the fight for jobs and to keep them intensified sharply.

For many, the dream is to work at a giant South Korean conglomerate such as Samsung or the Hyundai Group, but such opportunities are few and far between.

South Korea’s graduates are also somewhat averse to working in the three D’s—jobs that are dirty, dangerous or difficult.

“In today’s world, where capital and technology can move freely across borders, our young are battling for a limited number of jobs. It is only natural for the government to offer what support it can,” says Jung Hae-Joo, team leader at Overseas employment bureau, the Human Resources Development Service. “If people start thinking of home as where the work is, this will expand possible areas of employment.”

But will it work? The director general of the bureau, Kwon Young-Jin, answers the question with another.

“Do you know PSY, the singer who found fame with the song ‘Gangnam Style?’ He used his experience of studying in the United States to make it big there,” Kwon said. “If South Koreans working overseas can enhance our country’s image, it will create more employment opportunities.

“I hope to create niches in the international labor market where our young workers can thrive. We need to help our citizens find jobs abroad,” he said.

The agency goes to considerable lengths to achieve it. It not only offers training, it collates job postings on its website and offers advice on procuring visas and how to spot fraudsters. It also holds job fairs both in South Korea and overseas to show foreign companies what Korean workers can do.

In the five years to September 2012, around 24,500 people had taken the agency’s training. Of these, 10,645 subsequently found work.

Alumni range from office workers to nurses and computer technicians–and the list of countries where they found work–is dazzling: 54 nations in total, with China, Australia, the United States and the UAE figuring prominently.

Over 70 percent of successful job seekers were in their 20s; and Japanese firms accounted for 1,457 jobs secured by specialists such as engineers.

Ki Jae-Jung, 31, completed a nine-month data engineering course at another training institution in Seoul. He says a Japanese company has already offered him a job as a systems engineer.

Until a year ago, Ki was studying for the bar exam. He began job hunting when he hit 30.

But he applied unsuccessfully to 30 employers. He then learned of the training and signed up for a computer programming course, starting again from scratch.

The course aimed to prepare its students for work in a Japanese corporate environment and included Japanese language lessons. With an industry shortage of IT engineers, the course’s 22 students quickly found themselves in hot demand, and Japanese employers handed them 100 job offers.

“I’ve heard that software engineering is a very demanding job, but I have nothing to lose,” says Ki. “I have no choice but to try making a living in Japan.”

SINGAPOREANS LOOK TO THE WORLD

Singapore, traditionally a nation of immigrants, is increasingly becoming one of emigrants.

Of 3.29 million people with Singaporean nationality, around 6 percent, or 200,000, now live overseas. Almost a third of them left in the past 10 years alone.

The government is frantically trying to stem this outflow and to calm social tensions over ballooning immigration—noncitizens now account for 38 percent of Singapore’s population.

Singapore’s per capita GDP is higher than Japan’s. It also tops global charts when it comes to education and social order. No wonder, then, that foreigners have flocked there.

Though this has boosted Singapore’s international competitiveness, it has also led to grumblings against the government by locals unhappy with rising prices and the social tensions accompanying rapid population growth. The competition is now uncomfortable.

“It’s just an endless fight. I wish we could relax more,” says Ezfahme Ezzam, 35, a Singaporean of Malaysian extraction.

His sentiments are shared by his wife, Ei, 36, who hails from Japan’s Hyogo Prefecture. The couple say they will shortly vote with their feet and move to Australia with their two children, aged 8 and 2.

Singapore is only a small country, comparable in size to Tokyo’s 23 wards. It has no natural resources. It managed to flourish after independence in 1965 by creating a fiercely competitive society.

The ruling elite is groomed from an early age, with classes divided according to skill from elementary school upward.

The workplace, too, has a strong focus on results, and workers may change jobs every two or three years in search of better conditions.

Ezfahme teaches history at a junior high school. He says his brightest student is an immigrant who arrived from China two years ago. At first the boy couldn’t speak English, but he overcame by literally memorizing the dictionary.

“In order to compete with such highly-driven foreigners, adults are working longer, too,” he said. “I work 50 percent longer days than I did 10 years ago. I now need to work from morning to night.”

The country could make up for its talent drain by accepting more foreigners, but this would likely drive more Singaporeans away. Since 2006, the government has tried to draw expats home by setting up an agency offering information about schools, housing or employment. And in 2011, it began issuing fewer visas to foreigners.

Coming from a nation built by immigrants, most Singaporeans have no aversion to moving abroad.

“If you don’t like it, you can always come back! That’s the globalized world we live in,” jokes Ezfahme.

COMPANIES CASH IN

As more Japanese move abroad, an industry has sprung up to help them with the transition. The Japan International Movers Association says the industry has grown relentlessly over the past 30 years and is now worth around 60 billion yen ($685 million).

It’s not just about transporting unaccompanied luggage; some companies offer expats full support as they settle in overseas.

The association has around 50 Japanese and foreign removals companies on its books. One of the largest is Singapore-based Crown Line, which now has offices in nine countries, including Japan. The company has recorded growth of 20 percent every year since 2008.

“More people are now telling us, ‘My entire company has moved here, so I plan to stay until I retire,’” says the firm’s general manager, Migiwa Kato.

Tokyo-based Relocation International offers an unusual service. It helps manage the homes vacated in Japan by individuals who have moved overseas.

Since 2005, the company has helped 200 companies and more than 8,000 households move abroad.

It offers comprehensive support, from getting health checks and a visa, to house hunting and the traditional service of shipping belongings.

“Human resources departments are increasingly outsourcing this work,” says the company’s president, Yasuji Shimizu.

But relocating overseas is not the same as moving within Japan, and this, it seems, is something not understood by every Japanese person with itchy feet.

An overseas mover who additionally deals in foreign real estate said a Japanese man in his 50s once called at his office.

He had just flown over from Japan—at no notice—and now wanted a one-room apartment.

And the man was rattling away enthusiastically about the health food company he planned to set up. It was a sure-fire hit, he said, as an Asian health boom was surely just around the corner.

But questioning revealed that the man’s sole current product was one designed to help people stay warm—the last thing anyone needs in a land of perpetual summer.

And when it came to the cost of renting an office, the man was shocked at the price. Within two weeks, he was on the plane back to Japan.

The mover says moves are often stressful, too, for expat wives. With husbands often away from home on business, some wives even fall ill, worn down by the stress of living in a foreign land, in a small, claustrophobic Japanese community.

(This article was written by Kyoko Horiuchi, Daisuke Furuta and Eri Goto)

South Korea helps young emigrate, Singapore wants them back