By Jane Han
Staff Reporter
``Hi, Mom! How was your day?'' is how Kim Ji-ae's eight-year-old son greets her when she returns home from work. In near-perfect English, the first-grader continues to ramble on new words that she doesn't recall teaching him.
``It's the nanny,'' says the 36-year-old working mom, referring to her Filipino nanny-housekeeper, who has been with her for 10 months. ``She spends more time with my son than I do, so I guess it's only natural that he's learning from her.''
And Kim, who works long hours running a fashion boutique in Apgujeong-dong, isn't bothered by this at all.
In fact, English was the main reason why she hired a non-Korean to take care of her son after school, clean her three-bedroom apartment and do some light cooking.
The program is similar to the western au pair system. An au pair is a foreign national domestic assistant, working for, and living as part of, a host family.
Kim says her son has become much more comfortable with English after interacting with the Filipino domestic help, who spends about 10 hours per day at her house.
``She speaks a little Korean, but I specifically asked her to speak in English to my son,'' said the mom, who is starting to get worried that he would experience linguistic confusion from getting exposed to too much English before learning Korean fully.
Despite some concerns that may rise, education-frenzied mothers like Kim are becoming increasingly open to hiring foreign helpers to get the best of both worlds.
``The demand is enormous,'' said Kim Seok, who runs an Internet site (www.nannyjob.co.kr) that helps connect parents and jobseekers. He explained that Filipinos are most favored because of their English fluency, but Chinese caregivers are also growing popular with moms wanting to teach their kids Chinese at an early age.
Han In-kyung, manager at Family Care, a job placement agency, added that aside from the language benefits, non-Korean workers are cheaper to hire.
Korean housekeepers typically gets paid 40,000 to 50,000 won per four-hour standard shift, but their foreign counterparts receive about 50,000 to 60,000 won for an eight-hour workday. Live-in ``au pairs'' are also less costly.
``With all the benefits, there's little reason for moms and dads to turn down a foreign housekeeper-nanny,'' said Han, adding that the surge in demand is subsequently ramping up the labor pool.
Industry experts say that there are roughly about 4,000 foreigners working as a ``mother's helper'' in Korea.
Many of them land jobs through placement agencies, but some get hired through the word of mouth, said Kim, who advised employers to check the worker's basic personal information.
``It's better to be picky at first than to be sorry later,'' he said.
jhan@koreatimes.co.kr
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