Finding a Job as an Expat can be Difficult — Too Foreign For Home
It’s been nearly two weeks since I moved to Casablanca now, and I feel that my family has settled into our lives relatively well, having taken some of my own advice. We’ve figured out how to get around town for the most part, tested out grocery and food delivery apps, and a few other things like that. My wife is a week into her job at her new school and my daughter will be joining her later this month. So, that will leave me with the majority of weekdays to myself, clicking away at the keyboard for the few people who read this. Or I could go about finding a job.
While finding a job in your home country is hard enough to begin with, finding one when you’re overseas is on a whole other level. There are certain professions who don’t face the same hurdles as the rest, such as teachers and programmers. But, any career outside of that will most likely be faced with a tough task when finding a job for a variety of reasons.
Foreigners Cost More
The simple fact is that Westerners who tend to travel abroad and look for work tend to scoff at the extremely low wages found overseas. The idea of making what is considered minimum wage in your home country is nearly insulting for some. Employers know this and will automatically dismiss expats looking for work. Why pay one Westerner high wages when you can hire three locals for the same price and get more productivity?
On top of the higher wages and benefits, there’s also the issue of work visas and permits. While some of the onus falls on the expat employee to get their paperwork in order, employers take on a large portion of the costs. Processing fees, additional taxes, and outright low-level corruption (aka bribery) can increase the cost of hiring an expat substantially. Through no fault of their own, expats finding a job become too expensive to employ sometimes.
Language Barriers
So, expats tend to be more expensive to employ right off the bat. There isn’t much that they can do about that except be willing to take lower wages to work. Even if they do find a job that they’re willing to take less at, though, there’s the issue that they’re working in a country that might not speak their native language.
While a lot of the world speaks more than language, Americans don’t for the most part. According to the US Census Bureau, only a little more than 20 percent of Americans speak another language besides English. Considering that 60 percent of the world speaks more than one language, we lag far behind. So, why would an foreign employer hire an expat who more than likely doesn’t speak a second language, especially not theirs?
You Have an Expiration Date
Ignoring the cost and lack of language skills that expats inherently bring, there is a major issue for employers abroad when hiring foreigners. Simply put, expats are eventually going to leave. While there are a decent amount of people who stick in one place for more than a year or two, many employers don’t want to take the risk. Why go through the hassle of visas and permits for someone who is going to be gone nine months later?
Schools go on a year by year basis, so people leaving is part of life for them. Hence, why teachers tend to have better luck at finding a job. Sales, marketing, customer service, and other work sectors don’t have the same timelines in place. Is it any wonder why employers prefer to hire locals who cost less, don’t need visas or permits, speak the language, and have local roots?
Originally published at https://tooforeignforhome.com on August 13, 2021.
