By Park Si-soo
Staff Reporter
ANYANG, Gyeonggi Province ― Landing a job is still tough despite the economy showing signs of recovery. Even talented young Koreans are struggling to get a position here.
The situation is similar for foreigners, especially immigrant housewives.
After marrying a Korean and settling down in the country, many of these women face a difficult time securing employment due to a lack of information, low Korean-language proficiency and other types of "invisible discrimination," including racism.
According to a recent survey of 230 immigrant women by YWCA Korea, more than 82 percent of respondents expressed a strong intention to get a job here. Thirteen percent of them said they would readily take any "disadvantageous treatment" to find employment.
But only 7 percent of them had any job experience at domestic companies, the survey showed, indicating their dreams and reality are still miles apart.
To help narrow the gap, the YWCA held a rare job fair for aspirant immigrant wives in an indoor plaza of a subway station in Anyang, an industrial city just south of Seoul, Wednesday. The YWCA's chapter in the city hosted the event with the sponsorship of Lotte Home Shopping, a cable TV shopping channel.
The event was created to help provide foreign wives living in the city and its vicinity with tips on how to search for jobs. Some companies ran on-the-scene job interviews.
"For foreign wives, employment is another opportunity to place themselves closer to the community's mainstream," said Chung Sook, president of the Anyang YWCA. "We hope this event becomes a stepping stone for that."
The plaza in the station was crowded from Wednesday morning with those dressing up in the traditional costumes of Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam, the Philippines and Cambodia. Many of them were standing alongside a series of steel-framed booths and were talking to each other in Korean.
On tables installed in the middle of the square, well-trained foreign nail artists showed off their skills to visitors free of charge.
They were part of 109 immigrant wives "employed" by YWCA offices nationwide under government sponsorship.
They receive 660,000 won ($560) on a monthly basis from the Ministry of Gender Equality in exchange for taking one of the YWCA's 10 most sought-after job training courses.
Joucey Cabaltera, 24, a Filipina who tied the knot with a Korean in January 2008, is one of the beneficiaries of the state-sponsored program.
"I have taken a course aimed at nurturing nail artists for four months. I like my job so much," Cabaltera said smiling. A Korean visitor who received service from Cabaltera spoke highly of her, saying, "It was so good that I feel sort of guilty receiving it for free."
Neatly wearing a pink kimono, Ogata Mariko, 33, now serves as a freelance instructor for multiculturalism to kids in kindergartens and primary schools.
"When I came to Korea three years ago, having a job was hardly thinkable because my Korean was poor and I had no idea of how to find a job. So I spent the first two years at home. But the program was a beacon of hope," Mariko said in Korean.
She underlined that by being employed it boosted her self-esteem and confidence. She gave tips on ways to get a job to those who are too shy to venture out.
"First of all, proficient Korean-language skill is necessary," the former babysitter said. "Secondly, go out of your home and meet Koreans and other immigrant wives as frequently as possible. That is a time-saving way to be familiar with Korea and Korean, and even get a job."
Job experts echoed her thoughts, citing fluent Korean as the most important tool to land a job.
"One of the greatest difficulties they have in securing a job is their low Korean proficiency. The cultural clash is no longer a big problem," said Lee Eun-ok, job consultant for the state-funded Woman Resources Development Center in Anyang. "Many immigrant wives have been hired to work on assembly lines of small- and medium-sized factories. But I have frequently witnessed bosses complaining over the delayed assembly process due to (the immigrant wives') misunderstanding of top-down orders delivered in Korean."
Park Dong-soon, secretary-general of the Anyang YWCA, also said immigrant housewives' low Korean-language proficiency makes it hard for them to get a job here.
"It would be much easier for them to land a job if they were more fluent in Korean. But many of them just apply before reaching the level, even without sufficient information," Park said.
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