What is going on with the korean talent these days? Seems to be getting worse. Bring back the days of Midas, Romeos and Angel Town!!
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What is going on with the korean talent these days? Seems to be getting worse. Bring back the days of Midas, Romeos and Angel Town!!
A number of factors.
Korea is facing a demographic crisis, birthrates have plummeted over the past number of years, the economy has slowed, unis are predicting a drastic decline in local enrolments over the next 2 decades. The number of koreans travelling overseas for studies has halved since 2017. Globally it has dropped in the region of 60% since 2010. In Australia the figures are worse, more like a 65% drop. One of the reasons kids used to study overseas was that it was seen to be beneficial in securing higher level employment on return, but that trend has also died, with employers preferring local talent now as they're seen as more likely to survive the intense korean work culture.
Add to that it became kind of a widespread innuendo that a youngish pretty girl going to Australia on a WH, student visa or similar was going there to do sex work. I know a Korean girl, not in the industry, who'd been living here 10 years, went back to visit family, and the taxi driver once he asked "Where have you come from?" and she answered "Sydney" went on a rant about Korean girls going to Sydney to work as hookers. As you can imagine she was hugely offended, but it didn't stop his continued insistence that she must work as a sex worker of some sort as she "is pretty enough". And that's nowhere near an isolated incident, I hear it quite often. But sure that's anecdotal..
Other factors could include Korea took longer to emerge from Covid and was hit harder than we were, an ageing population with fewer kids means those kids won't want to leave ageing parents, not culturally acceptable behaviour. Also lots of girls trying to pursue a "career" as an influencer...
The days of an abundance of Korean girls arriving regularly are gone is the summary answer.
Also don't forget about the AUD and the Oz economy.
The AUD is probably the worst performing currency in the OECD right now. Been tanking against the USD since 2021, and also tanking against the KRW for the last 1 year. Take a look at the 1-year and 3-year conversion charts of major currencies against the KRW. USD, GBP, EUR, all of them are in the green, but AUD is in the red. That means earning AUD for these girls would be much less desirable than any of those other currencies.
Then there is the Oz economy. This actually relates back to the strength of the currency. Our economy is EXTREMELY fragile because the ultra-high levels of mortgage debt makes it impossible for the RBA to increase the interest rate sufficiently to combat inflation.
People always cry foul about interest rates making life tougher for all, as if it adds to inflation. Well, that's only because our economy was abnormal to begin with. A normal functioning economy shouldn't have had so much invested into mortgage debt, shouldn't have had such high property prices. Now the only tool that can beat inflation has become unusable.
The end result is, our real inflation levels are a lot higher than anywhere else in the world, and our currency is tanking because of it.
Maybe we can think of K-girls in the shops as some sort of "canary in the coal mine", lol...
@GoldfishMan.
Too right. Absolutely "on the money". Pun intended.
Yeah our currency exchange rate is definitely getting battered - and all these people crying about their mortgage and hating the RBA for interest rate rises don't understand that we are importing inflation because the RBA has been so TIMID with the rate rises compared with the rest of the world.
I'm in tech - and my expenses for staff and infrastructure has gone up significantly due to our exchange rate. This in turn gets passed on to my customers that are here.
Someone mentioned the ROK government has crack down on their women going overseas to work as sex workers after sensational expose in their local media. Admittedly all those working holiday visa holders from SK turning to sex work overseas isn't a great look for their country.
But wats the big deal? The Japanese women are getting here in big numbers nowadays to replace them. Kinda surprised about the reason though. Until I realized how bad their economy is projected to be. It gonna be worse than Germany and that's saying something lol.
That's exactly right, and the RBA being timid with interest rates is not their fault either. This is the doing of the governments of the day. When the RBA dropped rates to record lows, they did that with the expectation that the additional liquidity created would flow to productive use, to companies struggling during the pandemic as business loans, etc. Not funneled into buying ever more expensive non-productive assets like residential property.
Yet the governments didn't do anything to direct the liquidity. They simply let it flow where ever it went. You wouldn't believe how crazy it was back then. I was working in a big bank back then. We had people applying for "business loans" that were then actually used to buy residential properties. Can you believe that? The banks just turned a blind eye because they were making money, and what's the risk of buying good ol fashioned Aussie RE, right? It was a complete sham!
Ergo we're in this shitty position now. The RBA cannot increase interest rates because doing so would increase rents and mortgage service costs. Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place!
The governments of this country are all idiots, regardless of which party they're from.
Agree on residential property and the tax breaks that assist in fueling it.
But monetary policy, which is poorly targeted, isn't the only way of addressing inflation, but governments are reticent to move on fiscal policy as politicians are invariably short term with a populist slant and one eye on yr 2/3 polls.
Real reform is unpopular, example the GST.
Everyone knows negative gearing and foreign ownership are two main factors contributing to housing crisis here. This is happening because a basic human right (Shelter) has turned into a profitable good and subject to greed and political games.
It seems like you work in finance Goldfish good analysis
Labor did suggest looking into negative gearing when they were in Opposition. Unfortunately Labor realised very quickly there are a lot of wealthy people who would vote against any party suggesting changes. But surely more people would have supported a review. Why is the Federal Government subsidising people buying 2-4 properties
It's sad because we have allowed an essential need (houses, units) to become a tool for speculation and investment by the wealthy
Meanwhile homelessness becomes a reality for more and more people
Governments for 30 years in many countries have lead the next generations into poverty. We laughed about people staying home with parents into middle age. It's now mandatory for a large number of people
I agree the foreign ownership. A lot of my customers have sold their houses of the internet without the buyer even seeing the place in person.
Also heard some governments will give interest free loans to invest overseas.
We can't even buy in a lot of those countries unless you're married. to someone from there.
The actual impact of foreign ownership is no where near as high as what you think it is. It’s the interest rate effect. During Covid house prices went up substantially when there wasn’t any foreign buyers. Now, when rates have gone up, only a small portion of the population is suffering. Young generation home owners with mortgages. What is the percantage? Less than 10%. Wealthy older boomer Australians still want to invest in more property. They have no incentive to wish for lower property price. Don’t be racist. Facts and logic please
Regardless of the proportions of ownership, since Australians aren't allowed to buy property in many large foreign countries, isn't it just fair and just not to allow citizens from these same countries to buy Australian properties and farms and ports?
I don't care the ethnicity, it's just basic justice
As for Korean ML/WL, let's avoid stereotypes. Some may be great service, some may not. Don't idealise a certain race. KPS was a thing in Sydney
The impact of foreign ownership isn't about racism my friend, it's a fact.
A house goes into the market and an overseas buyer with no mortgage buys it in cash and way above its market value and guess what happens next? All the other houses will match the sold price and locals get kicked out from the market? One of the very first question a vendor asks his agent before the auction is : Do we have any Asian buyers ? (This is not a fabrication and not racism, it's taken from an Interview with Tom Panos who is one of the top auctioneers in Australia. He was the major presenter in AU Real Estate Expo in Gold Coast and did the final auction for the block.
Now guess how that bubble was created? And who was responsible for it?
https://www.afr.com/property/commerc...0230309-p5cqrn
This is not racism, unless you want to close your eyes to what's actually happening.
As for Koreans, I just returned from South Korea. All I can say what you see here as Korean WL/ML, is the left over of the main party. Kind of beauties you see in Seoul Gangnam and Hongdae is totally a different class to what we see here.