Daejeon foreign instructor figures revisited

 As I reported last week, the Daejeon City Journal reported that, according to a survey by the Daejeon Seobu Education Office, as of November there were 375 foreign instructors working at 105 hagwons there, up from 169 at the end of 2011, and 105 at the end of 2010. In the comments, John from Daejeon called bullshit on these figures, so I decided to take a look at the statistics released by the Korean Immigration Service to see what was going on (look for 등록외국인 지역별 현황, released every June and December, and use the 지역별 및 체류자격별 tab at the bottom of the excel file). What I found was that in December 2010, there were 818 E-2 visa holders in Daejeon, which increased to 851 in December 2011 and 860 in June 2012. So, unless a massive decrease in the number of foreign public school teachers in Daejeon has been masked by this great increase in foreign instructors (or the increase is due to F-2 and F-4 visa holders moving into hagwon jobs in Daejeon in droves), I'll have to agree with John.

It's good to know E-2 visa holders get drug tested and not local journalists...