A 30-year-old man says he chose the wrong time to come to Vietnam, as the golden era of "Western teachers" has passed, with increasing competition leading to lower salaries.
"A teacher can't survive by teaching at just one center," Amy says. "It's even harder for Americans like me." At public schools, he receives 350,000 VND (~15.22 USD) per teaching hour, which is 100,000-150,000 VND (~4.35-6.52 USD) higher than at English language centers.
After Covid-19, online teaching became popular as a way to save money on facility rentals and reduce teacher salaries. Currently, academic staff can only assign teachers to one or two classes. He feels this income is inadequate compared to the amount of administrative work outside teaching hours, such as lesson planning, reporting, grading, communicating with teaching assistants, and attending meetings.
At the end of June, a friend of his announced that their center had lost over 50% of its students. They could barely hire new teachers and had to move their office from District 3 to Thu Duc City to reduce rent. Eventually, Amy chose to return his home country.
Stephen Wield, 40, says summer is the period when he has to tighten his belt the most. The American teacher in Tan Phu district had a child last year. Family expenses doubled, but he couldn't find any English language centers hiring full-time teachers during the public school summer break.
He came to Ho Chi Minh City 7 years ago, realizing that the foreign language teaching market here offered many opportunities for native speakers like himself. In reality, Stephen was paid 450,000 VND (~20 USD) per teaching hour, averaging 20-30 hours per week. This income allowed him to live very comfortably in Vietnam.
But the situation has changed, especially after Covid-19 and the economic recession. From April to August, Stephen only received one part-time job, teaching three to five hours per week.
"There's too much competition as more and more foreigners choose Vietnam as a place to settle," he says. "In fact, they prioritize teachers with good looks, white skin, blue eyes, and blonde hair, which I don't quite meet these standards."
While Stephen continues to distribute his CV to various centers, his family of three will live on savings. The American man says that prices in Vietnam have been rising continuously over the past four years, making his difficulties increasingly greater.
Foreigners struggling to find work like Stephen and Amy are not uncommon. A survey by the TEFL teaching community, which currently has 50,000 members, shows that the number of jobs has decreased by 50% over the past year. A representative from the English Teaching Jobs group, with 55,000 members in Ho Chi Minh City, explains that the job market for English teachers with TESOL, TEFL, and CELTA certificates in Asian countries is declining.
Ms. Debra Mann, administrator of the TEFL teaching community, believes the reason is that the number of students at centers has decreased, forcing employers to cut back or be more selective. She first came to Vietnam 7 years ago and noticed that centers were competing to recruit Western teachers, but this is no longer the case.
Additionally, the collapse of the Apax Leaders English center chain has eroded parents' trust. They need clearer evidence of their children's progress and are not willing to spend large sums of money.
The number of native-speaking teachers in Ho Chi Minh City has skyrocketed in recent years, creating fiercer competition. "The pie is being divided into smaller pieces," says Debra Mann. Some people are considering moving to other markets such as Japan, South Korea, China, and Thailand.
Jenny Petrova brought her 12-year-old son to live in Vietnam, never imagining she would spend nearly a year sending 100 job applications everywhere without receiving any responses.
"I feel overwhelmed," says the 43-year-old Russian woman living in Tan Binh district.
Last summer, Jenny came to Ho Chi Minh City to visit her cousin and quickly fell in love with Vietnam for its warm climate and friendly people. She graduated with a degree in education, completed a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certificate, and has 7 years of experience, so she believed she would quickly settle into life in Vietnam.
"But I was wrong, the job market here is too harsh," she says. For the first three months, she looked for work through websites and social media groups but only received a few hourly-paid, unstable jobs.
After half a month, Jenny's anxiety grew. She wanted to find a permanent position with work visa support. Every day, she sent two to four emails to employers in various fields but still received no response. Jenny was only invited by some schools to work as a teaching assistant or substitute for sick teachers.
Thinking that big cities were too competitive, she started looking in the outskirts of Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and Ninh Binh. Last month, she received two job offers. One place wanted her to sign a contract for 100 teaching hours per month, with a salary of 8 million VND (~$348 USD), but they promised to pay an actual salary of 33 million VND (~$1,434 USD) . However, Jenny says "there's no basis to trust them."
Another place wanted her to try working in a distant province for 10 days, covering her own travel and accommodation expenses. At the same time, they wouldn't pay for these teaching hours. She refused, even though her savings were running low.
Meanwhile, in her Tan Binh apartment, Jenny carefully budgets her remaining savings for basic living expenses. She calculates 6 million for rent, allowing only one million weekly for food, education, and transportation for her and her son. Jenny is self-studying Vietnamese to improve her job prospects.
"I truly love Vietnam and want to stay long-term," she says.
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