> The visa requires applicants to have an annual income double the amount of Korea's gross national income (GNI) per capita for the previous year.
> Korea's GNI per capita was 42.48 million won ($33,000) as of 2022, requiring those applying for the visa to have an annual income of 84.96 million won.
That's actually surprisingly low. For reference, the median US remote employee makes $63,323[1] per year which means roughly 50% of US remote employees are eligible for a Korean work visa.
From a quick Google search, the average monthly remote salary in Europe is reportedly $5.3k - $6.9k[1]. That translates to $63.6k - $82.8k. I can't verify these numbers, of course.
I don't think it's meaningless on this context. Even the lower level of the average developer income in Europe would qualify. It shows the visa requirements are quite inclusive.
The US average salary is also lower than a California or New York resident but that doesn't mean the metric is bad. It simply means that ~50% of remote workers in America can move to Korea. Unfortunately, that also means ~50% of people can't. The same goes for Europe.
I cannot see that page, it just takes me to the homepage. But that sounds a bit high. I wonder how that number looks if you exclude San Francisco/Bay area which probably drives up that number by a lot.
I wouldnt be surprise if this exlude 95% of all nomads. Honestly I dont think it will attract many workers, timezone kinda sucks, country is expensive, low english proficiency and not really exotic. Mexico, Spain and most latam looks more appealing.
Having lived there around ten years ago, it's pretty exotic if you're north American, it's cheaper for food and drink, and English proficiency was pretty common.
It's more exotic than anywhere in central or south america to most Americans, timezone is easy to get used to, cost of living is cheaper and english proficiency is in fact very high.
> We hope the workcation visa will allow high-earning foreigners to stay in Korea's various regions and vitalize the local economy," the Justice Ministry said in a statement. "We hope the visa will be an opportunity for us to showcase our country and our culture.
I love the forthrightness. “Come here, spend your money, then leave.”
That’s the point of every economic visa. Bring value; maybe we let you stay (golden visa or long term residency with potential conversion to citizenship eventually), maybe we ask you to leave eventually.
Oh they don’t want you to marry anyone, then you might stay. Also—on average—Koreans aren’t super cool with marrying foreigners. A close family friend was only able to marry an American on condition of them not having kids.
In contrast with Thailand, where a surprising number of their leading movie and TV actors (and actresses... have we fully retired that word yet?) are biracial. My extended family in Bangkok keep complimenting my three half-Thai kids on the bridges of their noses being high enough to keep designer sunglasses up off of their cheek bones. (Edit: at first, I was confused about "big nose" being a compliment. Most Western fashion brands don't account for/have special models for East Asians typically having higher cheek bones and smaller noses, resulting in sunglasses that never quite fit and hover above the nose.)
I think part of it is economic, but I like to think a good part of it is that Thailand has been a meeting ground for centuries. First, it was a meeting place between Chinese and Middle Eastern merchants, and later Europeans when they started to cut out the Middle Eastern middlemen. Still later, Thailand was a neutral buffer state between British (Burma/Myanmar) and French (Vietnam) empires. Neither Britain nor France attempted to take over the buffer state, as it would have caused the other empire to immediately invade. Thailand was never strong enough to have full control over its affairs, but managed to turn that into its niche as a neutral middle ground.
I think your view of Korean culture is outdated, probably because your Korean friend is second or third generation Korean American. (Many of those people tend to keep facets of Korean culture from when they emigrated. Considering that Korea in the 1950s was little better than Afghanistan now, the difference can be huge.)
In 2022, 8.7% of all marriages in Korea were between a Korean and a foreigner. Modern Koreans are not strangers to the idea of marrying foreigners.
* Also, if I were you, I'd advise your friend to tell their family to get lost. I did see parents objecting to their kids' marriages, but telling them not to have kids is a weekend K-drama level of shitty behavior.
First generation, but older, so maybe it's changed. But Korea's foreign-born population is just 4.4% as of 2022. So what are the nature of these marriages? Would it be socially acceptable for a high class person?
> lso, if I were you, I'd advise your friend to tell their family to get lost. I did see parents objecting to their kids' marriages, but telling them not to have kids is a weekend K-drama level of shitty behavior.
Marriages are between families. They get a say, especially when inheritances are at issue.
> Would it be socially acceptable for a high class person?
One nice side effect of Korea's tumultuous 20th century is that old social hierarchy mostly collapsed, because everything burned down. Hyundai's founder was famously a son of a peasant. You could be literally a great-great-great-grandson of the last king and your friends would be like "Oh really? Cool story bro."
So I don't think the question is applicable at all, unless we're talking about a handful of ultra-riches - who knows what they are thinking.
It seems South Koreans in aren't comfortable with having kids in general. It's much better to dedicate your life to making shareholders of Samsung, or some other soulless megacorporation richer. That's how you get one of the world's lowest birth rates.
With Korea having one of the worst population pyramids of all the countries in the world, this problem will solve itself one way or another eventually.
Great! Not every visa granted needs to be permanent residence. Korea doesn’t need foreigners pushing up already difficult home prices. This is a cool program and they haven’t offered so many benefits it’ll be hard to cut off one day if it causes negative economic effects
Korea (and Japan) are notoriously xenophobic. They simply (as a general cultural characteristic) don't want people of different races settling permanently in their country.
I don’t think “xenophobic” is the correct word. They’re not afraid or contemptuous of individual foreigners. (Unlike say the French, or Middle Easterners.) At least in Tokyo, they seem to like tourists. But they have a strong sense of having their country, with its distinct ethnic and cultural identity, while other people have their countries.
> They’re not afraid or contemptuous of individual foreigners.
For Japan, superficially, perhaps, because this would violate rules of decorum, but in reality, no, people are quite hostile to foreigners, especially non-Western foreigners. Being openly racist toward Chinese or Korean immigrants is considered perfectly acceptable. Discrimination in employment, access to housing, healthcare and service by businesses on the basis of country of origin is also common. Despite being technically illegal under the Japanese constitution, there is little to no protection of these rights, outside individual lawsuits.
Perhaps it depends on which culture defines the word "xenophobia". Mere prejudice is sufficient according to one definition[1], which is indeed still evident in Korea. Also, attitudes towards foreigners are perhaps harder to hide when such foreigners stay longer (e.g. for the purpose of residency, not just tourism).
I don't know about Koreans. But I don't think the Japanese "dislike" foreign cultures. They have a strong sense of and preference for their own culture.
> I suspect you’re mistaking not wanting/being able to speak English for not wanting to interact with non-Japanese people.
Language doesn't have to do anything with it, it's more base than that. On a crowded subway for example, Japanese people won't want to sit near a white person or might get up and move if you sit near them.
People here avoid sitting near everyone. If you have 5 bags of stuff(cause that what tourists do), or even if you are overweight (something not that common here, and space-wise is a wise decision) then even worse.
But I don't think you are trying to have a conversation here, than just trying to push "facts" you read on reddit.
Not overweight and no bags at all. And it's one thing if they were already sitting and then get up if you sit next to them, but were fine sitting next to other Japanese. They are not exactly subtle about it.
I'm not trying to push anything, just recounting my own experiences.
I think the xenophobia of small town Americans is overstated. That said, it’s different because America is an individualist society. In a society where everyone is an island, it’s harder to explain why you care about someone with a different culture moving next door. By contrast in more collectivist societies, everyone is expected to follow the same norms and behave the same way, so people with disparate cultures moving in does actually create an imposition on everyone else.
An interesting story about Japan. I know someone who is ethnically Japanese, but who was raised in America and moved to Japan as an adult. He remarked he gets a lot of flak because he looks like he should know the rules, but doesn’t. It’s really not about “xenophobia.” It’s about having an orderly society where everyone knows the same rules and adheres to the same culture.
That’s a very American viewpoint. I think individualism should be punished. It’s why everything in America that requires social cooperation (public transit, government, etc.) is so shitty. Even just walking down the street—I nearly had a panic attack taking the New York subway the other day because of all the individualism.
> Not really. It's the viewpoint of most cultures throughout history.
Most cultures do not value individualism. It's not even universal to Americans, historically.
> Individualism allows for innovation and creativity.
So what? It doesn't allow for an orderly society that's pleasant to live in.
> This is a shame. Were you raised in Japan?
No, just a tourist who has eyes and can see what shit holes American cities are in comparison. I was raised in Virginia. At least there, at that time, Christianity still functioned as a check on American individualism. Unfortunately that has collapsed.
Most cultures absolutely do. Japanese culture is teh exception not the rule.
> So what? It doesn't allow for an orderly society that's pleasant to live in.
Of course it does. Those two things are not mutually exclusive at all. Unless you take one of them way too far like the Japanese do, with no discernible benefit.
> No, just a tourist who has eyes and can see what shit holes American cities are in comparison.
That's not because of individualism, that's because of corruption, lack of regulation and enforcement, wealth disparity etc. Other western countries with the same focus on individualism have very nice and clean cities.
> Christianity still functioned as a check on American individualism. Unfortunately that has collapsed.
The sooner any and all religions become forgotten, the better we will all be for it.
> Most cultures absolutely do. Japanese culture is teh exception not the rule.
By what measure? Most of the world is African and Asian, and those cultures are not individualistic.
> Of course it does. Those two things are not mutually exclusive at all. Unless you take one of them way too far like the Japanese do, with no discernible benefit.
The Japanese system produces tremendous benefits: an orderly society where everyone behaves according to rules.
> That's not because of individualism, that's because of corruption, lack of regulation and enforcement, wealth disparity etc.
Japan has corruption, wealth disparity, etc., as well. That isn't the thing that makes it different. Every society has those forces. Individualism just makes it harder to build a nice society in spite of them.
> Other western countries with the same focus on individualism have very nice and clean cities.
Most western countries aren't as individualistic as America. They're different than Asia, which is based on strong family networks, but it's not the worship of self that prevails in America: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante.
> The sooner any and all religions become forgotten, the better we will all be for it.
I wouldn't hold my breath, given that the world is becoming more religious: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/aug/27/religion-why-is.... Christianity was the glue holding American society together, and now that's breaking down we are seeing the consequences.
If we relied on individualists for everything we would still have no sewage system or water supply. Famously British parliament refused to fund a sewage system until they were tortured with stench for months.
Extreme individualism leads to societal collapse. In fact the concept of society means there are some limits on individualism.
The other day I saw a bigger toddler kicking a smaller toddler in a museum, with no parents in sight, and no one was willing to intervene until my wife did. People just look at their feet and ignore the issue.
There's a difference in punishing individual expression and freedom, and ignoring something bad going on. Cultures like Japan's punish people for wanting to veer away from the family expectations/role in any way. It's ridiculous and anachronistic.
Ignoring family expectations and social roles is "something bad." Why do you think you are special, and need to do something different than everyone else does?
I get that that's not what you meant by "Middle Easterners" but for what it's worth I think most foreigners would find themselves feeling quite welcome in Israel, as most people would feel happy that you decided to come here and want to make sure you have a good time and leave with a positive impression.
As a digital nomad (well... a potential one) these visas are great, but they don't let me do anything I couldn't do on a tourist visa. Of course it's a lot more advantageous if you're not a privileged national.
But what's in it for the Korean people? They get a small number of relatively wealthy visitors who use housing and infrastructure but don't pay taxes. They likely spend less than other tourists, and use more resources.
In Germany, the freelance visa requires "local economic interest", which translates to having German clients or a reason to work from Germany. Digital nomad visas seem to want the opposite.
I can only speak for Japan but it makes a huge difference being able to rent an apartment for a year for a fraction of a price of hotels/airbnb, and also get a proper Japanese phone number which is practically a requirement for all kinds of interactions here.
Not to mention having a full year instead of having to do a visa run every 3 months and risk being rejected.
2 years is huge. Being legitimately there is huge.
1. Right now you can be a "tourist" and have to leave/re-enter every 3 months. So things like renting an apartment for a year become out of the question, since SK could arbitrarily not let you re-enter. So you're stuck with the whims of hostel / airbnb owners.
2. Being a "tourist", you can't open a bank account or get a legit phone number. So you can't verify on Naver, which means you can't do things like book appointments for businesses that use Naver (which a lot of them do). You can't use KakaoPay without it either, so exchanging money with South Koreans means resorting to bitcoin which is just tedious.
Can you work on a tourist visa? Obviously nobody's going to know if you get on zoom, but official sanction to work in country seems like a distinction.
Additionally with their population trendline I can imagine that Korea will be happy to have even more tourists, especially ones who stay longer. Residents are maybe preferable but I don't know that they're mutually exclusive
I work in a highly regulated industry (finance), where employers are very sensitive about remoting in from other jurisdictions. Under my previous employer, I wasn't allowed to remote in from Thailand under a tourist visa, but (pre-full-invasion) I was allowed to remote in from Ukraine on a tourist visa as long as I went nowhere near Crimea or the Donbas. (I requested official clarification about remote work on a tourist visa in Ukraine, and got back a somewhat bemused response basically "Why on earth would we care, as long as your work is fully remote and you get out within 90 days? Did I miss some detail that would make us at all interested?")
Plenty of people in Thailand do illegally work fully remotely on tourist visas, and the government seems to turn a blind eye at present, as long as nobody is causing trouble. I looked into Thailand's digital nomad visa, but it would have required my employer to have a presence in Thailand. My employer at the time had no employees in Thailand, and apparently my employer's P.O. Box in Bangkok wasn't sufficient for a nomad visa. I had enough seniority at my previous company that they might have considered sub-contracting my work out to me via a Thai company owned by my wife, but it would have required pulling in a lot of favors and probably getting some partner-level approvals.
I mean what's the difference between a tourist with a laptop and a digital nomad? If you have no local clients, no local space and you officially reside elsewhere, it doesn't really matter.
Staying longer only makes sense if you grow economic roots too. You can't have a village with only digital nomads. Their taxes don't build bridges or create a community.
Right, but... we violate that all the time. If I'm abiding by the other terms of the tourist visa (90/180 days, e.g.), and all the work that I do is for a company in my home country, paid by that company in my home country bank account, and occupies about an hour a day max, I don't think it violates the spirit of the law (the letter of the law is, of course, subject to judicial interpretation).
Is it a violation of my tourist visa to take a phone call from work when I'm on vacation?
The big benefit is the prolonged duration of the visa that allows you to really settle in and live there for a while.
They let you work in the country legally. Working on a tourist visa is not allowed outside a handful of exceptions, and most digital nomads just hope to not get caught
I was answering the question wha's in it for Korean people. Couple of wealthy nomads are not a drain for korean economy instead they benefit the people as 2/3 of koreans are self employed and will greatly benefit from increased consumption.
In my experience, while these kinds of visas address personal tax liability, many US-based companies are still unlikely to allow W2 employees to participate due to (very real) tax, jurisdiction, and legal concerns (if a W2 employee is working in France, for example, are they required to comply with laws preventing employers from contacting employees on weekends? Maybe not, but even “fully remote” companies are unlikely to want to spend time figuring it out for one employee).
I think countries who want these programs to take off for employees who aren’t contractors need to invest in messaging and legal support for employers as well.
How does this work practically for a US-based company? Since this is a remote work
visa, can they even physically work at a Korea-based office or subsidiary?
Also, there's a 17 hour time difference between Korea and Los Angeles.
It's Friday in US, but Saturday in Korea. On Monday in Korea, you have to wait until the next day for them to work. You only have 1h-2h before the work day in Korea to sync with them in US, only on the West Coast, only 4 days a week.
For “nomads”, I think the more common situation is that the nomad works roughly 2am to 10am Tuesday to Saturday, maybe shifted to 6am to 2pm for half day overlap.
> I think countries who want these programs to take off for employees who aren’t contractors need to invest in messaging and legal support for employers as well.
The logical thing to do is to allow both employee and employer to sign a document saying "we both agree that the employment laws of X will not apply, and all employment disputes will be resolved by the courts of Y country according to their laws".
X country would make an explicit law allowing digital nomads to do such a thing, perhaps with limits on Y (ie. require the company to have links to Y, or blacklist countries with zero employee protections whatsoever).
Employment laws not negotiable by design. One reason is so an employer cannot use their collective power against the individual worker.
An employment contract is not a regular contract and can only be made according to rules otherwise it void and the court will find out the real nature of the contract for you. Even in the US employment contracts mention that all dispositions are valid only when not in conflict with law. The same happens in Europe.
I have a relative who is a work inspector and one case she always points out is the non compete or non disclosure clauses. She says if the contract does not give an obvious compensation for those clauses they will always be voided if tested in court, regardless of both parties having signed them. The threat power often remains though, because people are afraid of falling into such clauses so they self comply without any reason for it. I had work contracts for a developer work where it basically stated I could not have a blog without approval. I found it ridiculous and knew it was likely unenforceable but the tick stays in your head.
> are they required to comply with laws preventing employers from contacting employees on weekends?
Almost certainly they are, as the same is even true with employment across state lines in the US. Labor laws are almost always determined by the employee’s place of residence vs. where the company is located.
Exactly, and most countries promoting these visas refuse to clearly state what the foreign employers are exempt from or responsible for.
I went through this myself a few years ago. I applied for, and received, a Taiwanese Gold Card (a similar program that allowed for foreign employment). I spent months going back and forth with the Taiwanese office attempting to understand what my employer at the time would be signing up for. They couldn’t give a clear answer on whether my presence would create a nexus for my employer, whether my employer would become responsible for health care program payments, etc. They kept referring me to one of the big four consulting companies. In the end I gave up and never entered.
I think they’re mostly designed around wealthy contract workers vs. W2s, which has always been a “figure it out yourself” tax situation. I work for a global remote company on a W2 and looked at a few of these programs, but almost none are designed with this kind of arrangement in mind. You’d have to more or less go through the normal immigration routes as full time staff and your company comply with all the local employment and tax laws.
I don't think this is targeted at large corporation employees. More intended for freelancers, small entrepreneurs, and remote workers of small businesses.
This seems like a good idea and hopefully becomes more common in other countries.
The requirement to work for a foreign company and have an income double the average seems to allay the complaint of taking local jobs and consuming local social services.
It all comes down to how quickly new living spaces are made. The common theme in all of the most expensive cities of the world is the supply of new housing being vastly lower than the demand. 10,000 people may not seem like a lot, but if there are only 5,000 new residences coming on the market a year, this is a problem that will quickly compound.
Housing prices (in economically productive regions) are completely decupled from the birth/death driven demographics.
I'm from a country with a demographics falling off the cliff, like Germany but worse, and just like Germany, housing prices (where jobs are) have went nowhere but up at a steep rate beyond wage growth, because housing is not a fixed pie for whom now less people are competing due to increased deaths vs births, because for a few decades now, it's no longer just people competing for housing against the other people, but piles of money competing against other piles of money, and the bigger piles are winning(aka investors).
If you expect housing to get cheaper because less babys will be born, you'll be in a rude awakening. If you want housing to go down you need to decouple it from investments because otherwise, all the levers will be pulled by the governments and banks to make sure that line only goes up regardless of demographics. "Too few babies are being born? No problem, we'll just market those houses to foreign investors. Problem solved. Line goes up now."
I agree that housing prices are somewhat decoupled from local population trends, but at the end of the day _someone_ has to live on the property for it to be worth anything. In order for the speculation to pay off, somebody, at the end of the day has to pay for it to use it, otherwise it's just a ponzi scheme.
It might take a long time, but at some point the chickens will come home to roost. Or roast...
>I agree that housing prices are somewhat decoupled from local population trends, but at the end of the day _someone_ has to live on the property for it to be worth anything.
Internal migration is a big thing even in countries with tanking birthrates. Entire villages are being emptied as old people die and their kids move to the cities for studies and work. The population overall is shrinking but housing demand in cities is still growing fast.
So yes, you can have a booming property market in a country with shrinking population. Nobody's gonna live in those forgotten villages with cheap empty housing but no schools, universities, hospitals, doctors, jobs and entertainment opportunities.
>at the end of the day has to pay for it to use it, otherwise it's just a ponzi scheme.
The housing market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.
Look at external migration from the last ~5 years then. Wars, povery, political extremism, climate change, etc. refugee waves will only continue so I'm pretty sure hosuing demand wil keep going up no matter how your local demographics tank.
Safe to assume housing market aint going to go bust anytime soon if you live anywhere in the first world cities.
That's assuming western countries let refugees in. Right now, that's not on the political agenda. That might change if the housing market forces their hand but between xenophobia and greed, I'm not sure which one wins out in the end
Because there's rising demand due to more people moving to cities and tourism. Also don't forget Europe's population is still growing despite a low birth rate.
The places where people want to live shift accordingly. Small towns and villages prices fall, large cities rise astronomically - even in places with slowly declining population like Poland.
It's not about where people want to live, but where most jobs are. Historically rapid urbanization started with industrialization, which reduced jobs in countryside, and created news mostly in urban areas.
I think it's worth asking why the jobs are in the cities. Given our information economy, why do the jobs need to be in the cities? My theory is that humanity (and subset of it) behave a bit like neural network. Social networks - neural networks. They both process information. And the social network in a city has a better shape. Villages have insular clique-y networks. Sure there are connections outward - but not enough. Ideas cannot spread as quickly. This makes them worse at processing information so they are outcompeted by the cities.
True if homes are owned by individuals only. Having companies owning loads of real-estate throws a wrench into that (at least where this is common). For instance, in Zürich real new development projects are all owned by companies which almost exclusively rent.
To add salt to the injury, SBB (the federal railway company) entered the real estate market and rents exclusively. It feels like a government sanctioned way to keep people out of the housing market.
I think that one solution is to cut red tape on construction and remove related taxes or rent caps. Create the incentive to construct. Seldom any government does that, on the contrary it looks like they just reduce/remove the incentive to build.
[update] Also the regulation on gear/materials is insanely costly, in Dublin new houses need to have a BER [1] rating of 'A'. Looks great in paper but this severely increases the cost.
It will in rural areas, but the remaining population is still packing into the major cities. Same thing is happening in Europe with the €1 homes in empty villages.
What about native Germans though? At least here in Finland plenty of natives move away from the capital to smaller bordering towns once they start a family. Advantages are reduced cost of living, and improved safety & schools.
It happens here too, either willingly or not. At some point the city just isn't suitable either because of cost, infrastructure (especially for raising kids) or general unpleasantness.
But for most immigrants it's really hard to feel at home in a small town halfway around the world.
With the rise of investors, second homes and single-person households, demand is going up even as population decreases. (This is a generic statement about what I see in the west. I don't know the situation in Korea.)
Increasing rents and house prices is 100% to blame the owner/seller. If you want to destroy your own community for your personal gain you can't blame anybody else. Almost 100% of the population thinks it is right for home sellers and landlords to squeeze out as much as they can. Then blame somebody else for the consequences.
So home owners are to blame for the massively imbalanced housing supply/demand, and not the government who not just allowed but actively enabled that imbalance to happen in the first place?
Interesting thought process.
So the local gas station owner is also to blame for the increase in gas price and destroying the community and not the global supply/demand, right? Also the local bread maker, etc.
Landlords do not raise their rents because their own costs increase, unlike a gas station or any other sector of the economy. Landlords put the rent as high as they can get away with and are then very happy if people blame other people for it, for example digital nomads.
Home sellers equally sell their homes as expensive as they can and if the local work force can't afford a home then fuck them, they should move away or pay a land lord and stay broke. That's what most people think. But it's ridiculous to then blame the consequences on politicians or foreigners.
Businesses on the other hand have their own costs that dictates what they have to charge to remain in business. And they go out of business if they can't balance that. A land lord never goes out of business. A home owner can abandon his real estate for decades without losing it. There's a huge difference to businesses.
An example similar to real estate is natural resources, such as oil and gas. They generate enormous profit compared to investments and cost of operation. Some nations chose to let a few interests take those profits, some nations give their citizens cheap or free gas, some nations invest the profits into large funds and et cetera. There are different ways of doing things. Wherever you live right now, people did things differently in the past, especially when it comes to real estate.
>Landlords do not raise their rents because their own costs increase
Their cost definitely increases if the property is on mortgage and their rates went up. Also cost in maintenance increase and taxes as well. All those increases for the landlord will directly go into the price of rent for the tenant.
They also raise their prices because of supply/demand so someone comes and is willing to pay more. What are you gonna do, say no to more money?
The private rental market is still a business and not a charity. Only the public housing is there to cater to the needs of the people and not for profit making. Have you voted for the construction of more public housing?
Operational costs for landlords are marginal. Many of them do little maintenance, many of them do no maintenance. In the situation where they're taking rent to pay a mortgage, then they are not the landlord, they are middlemen for the real landlord: the bank. The dynamic doesn't change.
> What are you gonna do, say no to more money?
Yes, sometimes you should do that if more money goes against your values. I've said no to more money a ton of times. I shouldn't be surprised, but I am surprised that hackers think that the thought is absurd. It's not being a "charity" to not squeeze as much as you can.
When I had a physical business I went out of my way to employ young people from the local community. It never crossed my mind to do things differently, while some of my competitors were taking advantage of cheaper foreign labour.
If the idea is to squeeze as much short term profit as possible, nothing is stopping you. But then don't turn around and blame the people who rented the apartments for a higher price. It was the landlords that increased their price. If I'm selling train tickets and then start cancelling the tickets that were already reserved so I could sell them for a greater profit to a foreigner, is it rational to blame the foreigner or me?
People do as they please, but put the blame were it belongs and admit you did it for personal profit when the consequences come.
Sorry I'm not buying your argument. You can spin this as you want, but landlords in the private market are free to charge as much as the market will bear.
If the market bears crazy sums then is it the individual landlord at fault, or is the market itself for being broken, as in the supply of housing is too low "thanks" to government building regulations and the demand too high thanks again to government opening the flood gates on immigration?
A couple of landlords here and there like you, charging below market rates, is not enough to fix the broken market created by the poorly though out government policies because you're not changing the supply/demand numbers.
So again, is it the landlords at fault for the broken market, or is their pricing simply just a reaction to the broken market itself? /Rethorical question
Here's a thought exercise: if there's 10 apartments available on the private market and 15 people wanting to move in due to the influx of immigrants, how do you decide who gets to move in and who gets left out if not by purchasing power?
How do you decide to fairly split a limited resource like housing without going full communist and have the state own everything and the state decide who gets what?
Here's the hard truth: If you're the government and you open the immigration floodgates then you'd better have buikt enough free housing available, or the immediate market reaction is gonna be increased rents for everyone. Simple.
What you want is social housing, laxer building regulations, and tighter immigration regulations based on available housing.
> landlords in the private market are free to charge as much as the market will bear.
Yes, we all know that. It doesn't mean that they have to, and it doesn't mean somebody else is to blame for the consequences when they do that. Whatever bad incentives the government provides, every person is responsible and is to blame for their business decisions.
> Here's a thought exercise: if there's 10 apartments available on the private market and 15 people wanting to move in due to the influx of immigrants, how do you decide who gets to move in and who gets left out if not by purchasing power?
If you want to preserve the community, you give priority to people from the community and deny the immigrants. If you expel community members to make room for the immigrants, that is your fault and nobody else's. It's not the immigrant's fault, it is not the government's fault.
Human existence is not binary communist/capitalist. Only full blown communists and capitalists think like that.
> What you want is social housing
No, I don't want that. So if the rent is too expensive for poor people to afford because land lords are hogging real estate, then I have to pay that expensive rent for me and on top of that pay taxes for other people's housing through the government. That is nothing but injustice.
If everybody thinks that government regulation is the only way to stop people from abusing each other to the limit, instead of asking for personal responsibility, then don't be surprised when people do something stupid like vote in communists. What other options do you give them, if the answer to their woes is always a variant of "tough luck, get fucked"? Yes, for business and yes for career, those fields should be competitive. But no if decent and hard working people can not afford to live in their own place.
If I want to sell a widget for a dollar, I can sell it for a dollar. Demand doesn't force me to do anything I don't want to do. Especially when I know that selling it for a dollar would cover costs and net me profit.
Yes, if I really wanted more money, and am willing to make it at the expense of society, I could jack up the price until demand meets existing supply. But again, that is my decision, not the decision of some abstract concept named "demand".
How would you decide which hopeful customer gets it? A line? Draw sticks? Willingness to do chores for you? Ostensive praise?
If I really want the widged but really can't stand in line for long enough, is it okay to hire someone to wait in line for me? How about a programmer to make a bot to constantly refresh your website so that I don't have to? Two bots?
I would obviously demand prospective buyer couples engage in a team gauntlet against each other as part of a dystopian championship ladder for housing. Perhaps I'd integrate "ninja warrior" aspects to the challenge, culminating in a couple's cage match. Prospects would train for years to compete in my league: building themselves up; mentally preparing themselves; needing to be absolutely perfect to have any chance of winning. Losers would be banished from the neighborhood, perhaps even the city, forced to live on the outskirts.
Or maybe some economic analogue of all that.
Anyways, the allocation is a matter secondary to the price: the point is that I can find a buyer for the lower price, and there will always be prospective buyers who think any allocation scheme is unfair, especially when they're crushed beneath the matching Ugg boots of Jan and Pat, the couples doubles doomslayers.
Since the conversation is real estate, it's not hard to decide to sell to a young person or couple from your own community that you know well, that went to school with your kids or works in the same place as you.
Or you can sell to the highest bidder, maybe a foreign investor.
I personally find bread lines and black markets to buy basic necessities to be bad for society.
edit: By increasing prices you get capital with which to increase production to make even more money at closer to the original price point (due to selling more units). This in turns means that everyone can get a widget and not just a few people (lucky or well connected). It also means the money goes to the person able to increase production or make better widgets versus a pure scalper who resells the item (legally or on the black market).
There would be insufficient supply on the market then. How is that better? I've heard they show an apartment to 20 competing prospective tenants at once in Switzerland. I can't begin to imagine how much 20 wasted work hours cost there, and number of such previews per deal grows at least linearly, hence the whole thing grows quadratically.
I also see how it should destroy one's chances to rent any property if they deviate even slightly from the ideal tenant. A mixed ethnic family? Reject. Small child? Reject. Small business owner? Reject!
This thread of comments is yet another in an endless number on HN where somehow socialists and collectivists come out and to me the most disappointing part is that it’s evidence of deep failure in education systems that they can educate people well enough to be technically literate and engage on HN, but at the same time are fundamentally economically illiterate. It’s disturbing and frankly dangerous. Socialism is the most failed idea in human history yet it continues to persist and in my opinion it’s a bit like not teaching evolution in schools, omitting to educate about some fundamental nature of reality.
I think one reason for this is that the Soviet Union started infiltrating Western institutions about a century ago.
This extremely long-ranged strategy is still churning out results, even after they went belly-up. It's the kind of phenomenon that sustains itself - what conservative would ever consider becoming an academic in this environment?
And from there it spreads downward. It's also very helpful that the social "sciences" don't have a direct feedback loop to reality, so it's possible for large numbers of them to have completely kooky ideas for decades on end.
Russian thinker Galkovsky believes that it was the UK which has used Socialism# against all its affluent competitors.
The reason for this being, UK has quite stable political system for centuries, so even if it gets part of its own venom, that would not be nearly as destructive.
The USSR did surely assist in that, but it was too ham-fisted to serioulsy influence developed countries.
# If that sounds hard to believe, remember who paid Marx to publish Capital, hosted International Worker's Association and who published Communist Manifesto (and in what language).
Who's the socialist? For all the talk about education here, there seems to be a lack of knowledge that there are other perspectives and ideals than the materialist industrialist faiths socialism and capitalism.
For example real estate and migration are things that have existed for millennia before capitalism or socialism, and have been dealt with in a lot of different ways.
> Almost 100% of the population thinks it is right for home sellers and landlords to squeeze out as much as they can. Then blame somebody else for the consequences.
This is your comment from above. In order to make such a comment you are by definition either a collectivist or socialist. It reflects some fundamental illiteracy in the basics of economics and markets, because you suggest that a virtue would be for sellers or landlords to accept lower prices or rents than the market clearing price. That’s nonsensical frankly. It’s like suggesting asset owners are evil unless they hand out their assets as charity or donation or perhaps you will next suggest they should be obligated to, which is by definition redistribution and socialism.
I’m curious what education you do have and where you received it? You are here on HN and while I haven’t looked through your account history, I’m guessing you will somehow be technically very literate yet somehow have a mental framework for human economy and society that consists of some of the most failed and falsifiable concepts conceivable. Which country and/or state failed so deeply in providing a background in the economic components of our shared reality? there are many such as yourself and it’s incredible dangerous to civilized societies as when such wild failed and empirically flawed concepts are translated into policies via politics it brings incredible devastation, poverty, and suffering.
We need to start with reform of education systems. Almost as bad as not teaching evolution or perhaps even history of the holocaust.
Your comment reads like stringed together insults, or at least attempts at insults, mixed with some stalker tendencies. There's nothing there that really merits a response, and this is just a forum, so I can ignore you. But try to consider your attitude and behaviour, because in real life you probably have people that can't get away from you that easily.
Huh? I think this reaction from you could be an avoidance strategy of some sorts.
Multiple other comments are genuinely curious how individuals like yourself hold such bizarre views around markets but yet are likely technically very skilled. It’s a curious phenomenon.
I don’t have any issue in real life and don’t have any “stalker tendencies”, people check other accounts posts and histories commonly and it’s expected. I was saying I haven’t.
I’m both a landlord and buyer and seller of real estate. Let’s say I follow your recommendation of selling or leasing below the market price, then I would have multiple buyers or tenants to chose from. What would you recommend my selection criteria between them be?
Your lack of self awareness is weird. Do you think it's normal behaviour to hurl a bunch of insults at somebody and expect them to have a conversation with you? Nobody will give you the time of day when you go on like that, certainly not me, so bye–bye.
Don’t worry I wouldn’t have expected a collectivist or socialist to engage in logical debate. I’m fully self aware that when I challenge an opinion like you expressed that the classic response is that I dare “insult” your righteous assault on evil landlords and capitalists. The tragedy is that in modern times the failed socialist nonsense is still given any time of day.
Yeah and women should pick mates based off video game skills.
It's a human behavior which could theoretically be changed but wont be because it's irrational and unique to one person's perverse interests that none of the rational actors understand. Or maybe we could get the government to enforce this person's interests on everyone.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t allay the complaints of driving up the cost of housing for locals. I’m not sure if this is a problem for bigger cities, but there’s been increasing criticism by locals in ski towns and resort cities of remote workers coming in with much higher incomes than local companies can provide and consequently pricing out locals from housing.
They're in the death grip of consumerism, it seems. Consumerism is highly correlated with demographic decline. It shifts the perceived "center of gravity" of value toward the materialistic. Having children is sort of a net loss in the materialist calculus. Imagine a family with 5 children that owns a Honda Odyssey and lives in a modest house, and now imagine a family, with the same upper middle class net income, that voluntarily choose to have at most a single child, but lives in a sleeker house and owns a Maserati and a Porsche. Which looks more attractive to someone steeped in consumerism? Which generates more social approval today? Which is going to appeal more to the careerist? Which is going to look more like Success™?
It's obvious. Large families are no longer imagined as a joyful thing, life affirming, a source of meaning, an honor, and the true wealth of a family in the eyes most. No, large families are for poor people who are too stupid to use contraception, an impediment to consuming shit, because everyone knows that consumption is true happiness.
So it sounds like Korea may be trying to overcome occurring or forecasted economic decline resulting from the worst fertility rate in the world and without mass immigration and having their culture threatened as a result. But barring a miracle, they're just buying time before their inevitable collapse. I dare say it is virtually impossible for a society to turn away from the religion of consumption once it has captured and corrupted a society. The only way out seems to be through the inevitable collapse, as that is the only way the spell is broken. This is tragic.
I think this is a cynical and fatalistic view which considers only some selective viewpoints. I think you'll find that real people are far less materialistic and shallow than you assume, and choose not to have large families for many reasons. Cultures will adapt! Humans are dynamic creatures.
That's not to say we shouldn't consider the consequences of these changes and provide incentives and disincentives to nudge things one way or another, and manage the demographic shifts in order to lessen their shocks.
A lot of people are complaining about the income requirements. But it seems fair enough that they are trying to attract people that will spend a lot of money and this contribute more to their economy.
They aren't trying to attract people that will live off ramen for a year.
My biggest complaint is the application process:
> Those who wish to obtain the visa can apply via Korean embassies in their respective country.
I don't want to go back to my home country and sit there while I wait for my visa to go through! I'm already in Asia, flying back and forth to the UK to get this visa is a pain. It should be an online application process. I feel like they haven't really thought this through.
Depends on your home country because if there’s a tax treaty, it would supersede the laws.
Sometimes it’s phrased that any income from your home country while you’re in your guest country is only taxable in your home country. Other times it’s just credited against your local taxes (which could cover everything with a lot of paperwork, or could still leave you with an amount owing to cover the gap).
Sometimes even locally earned income is tax free, but that’s usually only for students.
Comparing to Barbados: they explicitly state in their "digital nomad" visa conditions: "You will not be liable to pay Barbados Income Tax and therefore will not be subject to any double taxation"[1] So they make it easy for you, no need to read through tax treaties.
If I go ask my employer today if I can work out of South Korea for a year the immediate response from HR/legal will be "no way". I'm sure the same applies to the vast, vast majority of the world's population. None of these visas are worth a damn unless all these countries can also sort out the million employment law and taxation issues that will arise from such an arrangement.
I fit this category perfectly when I was staying in Korea over 10 years ago. I ended up being there on a tourist visa on and off for a few years. I never had any trouble as a white foreigner but did have a hard time making Korean friends, only because my Korean was fairly basic and I didn’t work in an office or go to university. However, everyone I met was very accommodating, whether I was in places frequented by foreigners like Hongdae or Itaewon or in my now partners hometown which is small enough that most Koreans couldn’t place it on a map.
I walked into the government office a couple times and tried to find a path to a legitimate visa and was told each time I couldn’t do it. I found that the longer I was staying, the less comfortable I was with my status. If there was a path for me to be a legitimate resident, I may have stayed longer than the 3 years I was there.
> According to a survey conducted by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea among foreign residents in South Korea in 2019, 68.4% of respondents declared they had experienced racial discrimination, and many of them said they experienced it due of their Korean language skills (62.3%), because they were not Korean (59.7%), or due to their race (44.7%).
I've been or seen people denied entry to bars/restaurants/stores based on their skin color, but it's very rare and that's about as bad as it gets. It's not like Japan where you can't go into a sauna if you've got a tattoo.
It's more of a dress code thing or they just dont want to serve foreigner. Not necessarily because they are racist but due to language barrier they dont want to stress about it.
I (white guy) wouldn't say I was discriminated per se, but in a country that's probably 99.5% monoethnic you do end up feeling like a distinct outsider from time to time. I found that people were generally friendly and helpful, but I also studied Korean hard before I moved there and during my stay.
Businesses can arbitrarily reject you as there are (seemingly) no protections. I saw a (white) guy from Uzbekistan get rejected from a club for no reason other than his nationality.
Black people definitely experience racism in Korea. Not exactly like in the US obviously but it's a real phenomenon that people tend to dismiss.
I didn't say it was better or worse, just that it wasn't exactly the same. I just pointed it out because it's something that tends to get dismissed when people discuss SK issues.
Foreigner living and working in Korea. Racism isn't a problem in Seoul, but as a courtesy I would strongly recommend signing up for Korean lessons while here.
The biggest complaint foreigners have is foreigners tend to only stay for a few years, so you're always losing your close friends. My recommendation is to make sure your friends aren't other foreigners, but it can be hard to find English speakers (especially outside major cities)
> My recommendation is to make sure your friends aren't other foreigners, but it can be hard to find English speakers (especially outside major cities)
Korean is not the easiest language for Europeans to learn. But having learned a second language as an adult, I find that speaking the local language is amazingly useful when functioning in a foreign country. It's like, hey, I can talk! And I'm literate. Everything suddenly becomes much smoother and easier. I can hang out with people, make friends, go shopping, navigate an emergency room, and even hire skilled professionals who don't speak English. I can even take college level STEM courses, although it's brutal.
Expat bubbles are weird places. They're certainly useful for people who won't be around for more than a year or two. And getting good at Korean is a much bigger commitment than hopping between Romance languages. But if you're moving between related languages, then you can see significant payoff after 350 hours of work, and you can be able to function as an adult after 1,000 to 1,500 hours. And that's not all classroom time. Some of it can be watching TV, or just hanging out with people.
For any kind of extended stay, I feel like learning the local language is absolutely worth it.
Nope it does not. Koreans are one of the most closed societies on earth. They are not necessarily racist or anything like that but everything in korean culture is centered around relationships that you built in army, school, work or other activities. Even if you speak korean very well you will never be part of that culture.
Kind of, it depends on your ethnicity. Koreans tend to treat white people pretty well. There’s a lot of anti Chinese sentiment, and some anti Japanese. If you have African ancestry they won’t mistreat you but they have very strange stereotypes. There’s currently a “crisis” regarding South East Asian illegal immigrants plus drug smuggling, so if your ethnically from that region keep that in mind.
Korea is not as open to foreigners as for instance Thailand. It’s similar to Japan, being more easy to make friendships but having less State services that are foreigner friendly. Most documents are available in English, and most freeway signs are in both Hangeul and English.
I'm married to a Korean and we've spent a bit of time there off and on. I've studied up on ancient to modern Korean history and have a better than normal understanding of cultural norms. My language skills are sadly still a mess.
I would say that, broadly speaking, yes. Korea today is a bit more welcoming than nearby countries like Japan, China, or Taiwan, etc. Since the last dictator in the late 80s, there's been a general consensus understanding that for Korea to survive as a civilization (being next door to more dominant and better known cultures from Japan and China), it must integrate with the rest of the world, and produce meaningful cultural exports and become valued by the international order. The rise of Korean media is not an accident but part of a long-term series of programs to build viable industries in film, music, food, etc. and have those industries take root outside the country in order to create export markets -- very important when your entire economy is built on being export driven. Almost all of the Koreans I personally know, regardless of industry, would jump at the chance to work with a foreigner if it meant they could do some international business.
Korea is pretty small, so you quickly exhaust domestic travel options. As a result, the average Korean, while being somewhat parochial in outlook is pretty curious about the rest of the world, many now have the means to travel abroad, and they do so pretty often. It's not uncommon to be at the Louvre or the British museum and see tour buses of elderly Koreans unload. The succeeding generations, being better educated and often with better foreign language and cultural skills often just skip the organized group tours and go on their own.
When I first went to Korea, even seeing any signage in English was rare. Today, in Seoul you can usually find "ok" English signage around tourist spots, and it's not as impossible as it once was to find somebody who can have a very basic English conversation. Many vendors will have English language signs and it's atypical to be given "tourist" prices. I'd say in those respects it's easier to get around Seoul than Tokyo for example. If I had to sum up the Korean approach to dealing with foreigners is that "your money spends just as well as anybody else's".
Housing costs, especially in Seoul, can be high. If you are from a U.S. Coastal urban megalopolis area, they'll be comparable. If you have lots of cash on hand, the Jeonse (Key Money) practice can be helpful in helping set a low monthly budget. Outside of Seoul, housing is much more affordable, and to be honest, I find the smaller cities much more enjoyable and they aren't far from all that Seoul has to offer by bullet train. But locals may not be happy if an influx of nomads drives housing prices up. If I had to pick, I'd probably choose either Jeonju or Gwangju to live in (cheaper COL, great food, nice chill vibes in the southwest) or maybe Daegu if you like proximity to hiking in the mountains, and not far from the beaches in Busan. But I'm old, if you want nightlife, Seoul is where it's at.
All this combines to make being there pretty decent for the average foreigner, but not necessarily "cheap" like you might find in Thailand or other typical digital nomad countries. You'll always find assholes or grumpy old people like anywhere, but on the average you'll find most people on the day to day easy enough to interact with, and eager to do business with you. That being said, there are very few protections against discrimination. If something ends up with the police, it's pretty typical for the foreigner's account to be dismissed still -- so there's still some growing pains there -- it's not uncommon for media plotlines to revolve around some ill that a foreigner brought in with them.
With the demographic crash happening, and Korea becoming more of a destination country for foreigners (a little over 4% of the population are foreign and it hosts one of the largest American immigrant populations in the world), I expect there will still be quite a bit of social development occurring as the nation figures out if it can really welcome foreigners in a way that aligns with national aspirations -- but it's likely that we'll see a more cosmopolitan country in the future. The changes just in the last 20 years have been phenomenal to see first-hand.
If you want to see what pretty normal interactions are like with Koreans, I'd recommend the youtuber "Where is Dan", who's on a mission to visit every district in Seoul and practice his pretty basic conversational level Korean with as many shopkeeps and people on the street as he can get on camera. But the interactions are 100% authentic and typical of what a foreigner might find there. https://www.youtube.com/@whereisdan/videos
Just keep in mind that the financial system is very locked down in South Korea. Foreigners have very limited access to Korean bank accounts while crypto exchange accounts are completely banned even for permanent residents.
Paying rent by credit card is common in the civilized world. The only exception I know is the US, where I had to use paper checks, as if we're still stuck in 19th century...
Folks looking at this may also be interested in similar visa programs offered in east/southeast asia for context: Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan.
Singapore's requirements strike me as especially conservative in comparison (five years leading a co with $30M raised, and that's just one of the "two of three" reqs).
I'd also look at the local tech ecosystem before applying -- Twitch is shutting down in South Korea in 2024 due to sender-pays "network usage fees" in the local Telecommunications Business Act. Also there's legacy technology (esp for online banking) that depends on Internet Explorer and ActiveX due to a home-grown encryption standard built in response to US Export Controls limiting 1990s browsers to 40-bit RC2/RC4, so Windows is still the predominant desktop operating system there.
Anyone know where the details of this visa are located or what the official name of the visa is? The article didn't mention it's sources or have any links.
Can we please start calling this kind of visas for what it is?
Rich people visas are cool, but don't help actual nomads as simply everywhere they exist they put up a prohibitively high threshold on an income (that you can't even prove documentary half the time).
There are many visas for rich people, like Korea's investor visa (500m KRW - $386,182k). I don't see why any country needs to put in the work for a visa for people who don't have any money.
As I understand it, the whole point of these schemes is to collect money from people who do have it, instead of losing it to the guys who simply do remote work on the "tourist" visa.
Could you argue a little better who those "actual" nomads are that have no money and want to go to Korea and why they should be able to? I think you don't actually mean the literal nomads that still exist in Africa etc.?
If you can argue well, an appeal to a "we" and to a specific use of language in an online forum won't be necessary.
I can't really put up a quality argument with my personal example, as it gives away too much personal information, more than I'm comfortable with.
But let's say, if the country of my current residence had the same program with the same threshold, I would most likely not qualify (or just barely) and I surely wouldn't have any means of proving it. However, my financial situation† allows for pretty comfortable living (for more than one person), at least by the local standards.
I think I qualify for the label in question. All my work is done digitally and remotely, and I'm out of my country of origin (although not 100% by choice).
To be fair, your personal example would likely not be a quality argument in any case, and you not qualifying for a program in another country wouldn't necessarily good or bad in itself.
A strong argument should not only, as it is customary in modern times, to look at the advantages and the interest of the individual, but also consider the benefit of the commons, in this case the the country that (hopefully) designed their digital nomad program to the benefit of its population. It is their responsibility to attract and reject people accordingly.
> your personal example would likely not be a quality argument in any case
Uh, thanks?
> in this case the the country that (hopefully) designed their digital nomad program to the benefit of its population
Well, I can agree and just note that this is orthogonal to the issue I'm raising: It's a rich people visa and as such is not helpful to many people who objectively qualify for a "digital nomad" moniker, so there's a mismatch between the name and the function.
> in most of the major cities of the world nowadays
Uh I can think of quite a few where you would. Just on the top of my mind: Lisbon, Mexico City, Milano, Saigon,Bangalore, Madrid, I mean I can go on for quite a while. But sure, you’d struggle in Zurich, Monaco, London, Silicon Valley or Singapore, IE some of the most expensive places in the world.
My point is not to say that you can't struggle with 66k a year. I imagine it can very much be so in the US, or Monaco, or Switzerland. It's just that
> You would not be able to buy a house, support a family, have some hobbies, with a 66k/year salary in most of the major cities of the world nowadays.
Someone who can work fully remote globally with a 66k year salary will def. not be short of places where they can live extremely comfortably. Since we are talking about digital nomads, who can work from everywhere, I do think they constitute as very very rich in this context. When we think of those who would be able to apply for a digital nomad visa, in a global context, would be only those who are in the global top 1%.
Try supporting a family on $66k in or within reach of a major US city. You certainly can't afford to buy an apartment, let alone a house.
Purchasing power is what matters. Much less purchasing power today than people did in the 1950s (when a working class man could support a wife and children on his salary alone) and even boomers.
$66k certainly isn't poverty, even in a place like NYC or SF, but it is not rich.
But US is one of the richest country of the world. In a global context, where you have the ability to work from anywhere (I.E. can apply for digital nomad visa), then if you earn 66k year salary you are super rich.
Ok, but the trade off of that is that we are not super rich in benefits. Europeans may not earn much or get to be digital nomads easily, but at least they have good healthcare and social services. Isn’t that usually seen as a fair trade off?
Well, all of Asia (Middle east included) wants White engineers and see other people as second class. They figured out Europeans won't leave their living standards for Korea anyway.
Just ask any random non-white engineer working in UAE, China, and Japan. People are getting Western European passports and working in Dubai to receive first-class treatment.
But… that can’t possibly scale does it? Like maybe you can live a very nice life not worrying about money and having good foods, but you’re not going to get to a place where you have much more than a house and a nest egg, right? The “rich” are just the old money folks with compounding wealth. Right?
In the states, ignoring California insanity, it feels like if you can land a $200k+ job you’ll have something that feels sort of rich by the end but just barely. And that’a going to be around a top 5th percentile income for most areas.
It depends on where you live I guess, in my country (Italy) that's quite a high salary. Anyway "We hope the workcation visa will allow high-earning foreigners to stay in Korea's various regions and vitalize the local economy," doesn't sound as utopic as the title suggests.
You can count income in many ways and the data here is probably fresher than what I could find in a half-minute search. USA is just right after the Luxembourg and the number is still just 62% of the 66k mentioned above.
1. I can bet an average household in the US is > 2 people (google says 3.13). The threshold in question is for personal income.
2. The context of the whole discussion is global, so comparisons made from a perspective of a citizen of one of the richest countries in the world don't really fly.
If you're a single adult (which you probably are if you're interested in taking advantage of this program), $66k/year would mean you are richer than 99% of people on the planet, and your median income would be 20.2 times the global median. [1]
So yes, by global standards, $66k/year would mean you are extremely rich. It's even quite a bit higher than the median adult income in developed countries. At $66k/year, you're making about double the average German working adult, and over triple the average Japanese working adult. [2]
I think people often don't understand the grand scale of difference between the developing and the developed world. Yes, there is a cost of living adjustment, and certain things are cheaper abroad (though many things, such as electronics, are more expensive), but people really do consume a ton more in the rich world. Most people don't have cars, and most people live in far smaller homes. Even Europeans live in far smaller homes than Americans: the average new English home is 1/3 the size of the average American home. [3] People in developing countries also travel a lot less. Only 3% of Indians have traveled abroad, vs. 76% of Americans. [4]
The discretionary income, defined as "all the money you have left after paying for taxes and your absolute needs", that most Americans have (all but the lowest 3 deciles) would be extremely enviable by most people worldwide. [5, 6]
No salary required at all. Just check into one of the many hard labor camps. You can enjoy the local cuisine if you manage to catch a rat. If not you don't eat.
The only incentive they need to give is tax breaks. There's no mentioning of it in the article. Taxation being draconian in countries such as the UK, it would attract plenty of talent.
im so sad ireland shut down their golden visa program. im looking forward to building a portfolio of passports so i dont have to deal with the shit head border agents anymore.
There's a comment below this one that is flagged and dead, but honestly it sounds exactly in line with what I heard from a guy who lived in Korea for 12 years, eventually getting married and starting a family. Those were basically his exact reasons for moving away, that and wanting to be able to afford a house with a yard for his kids: Difficulty renting, difficulty with banking, language barriers (he was very self-aware that this was on him for not learning the native language, but still a factor).
I understand that my comment was reductive but statistics do point to this problem. People don't say this part aloud for some reason. There was even a sting operation in India about Korean restaurants denying entrance to indians while on indian soil which is actually against consumer laws in india (you cannot deny service). There's videos on youtube about the sort of racism that people experience. You need only search YouTube for "koreans racism against indians" for multiple anecdotes. It is the kind of behaviour that would get people in trouble in places like the US. Granted the US isn't exactly a bastion of equality but much better. So even on a nomad visa I would much rather stay at a western country or go to indonesia.
Incredible that countries still haven't learned that American-salary digital nomads are only harmful to local people. Airbnb all the apartments so locals can't afford in cities anymore.
While I do enjoy my EU salary nomading within EU, those with >5x local salaries have pretty much ruined Lisbon and Porto.
It isn't harmful to people collecting rent for those Airbnbs. Or service workers who can demand higher salaries. Or local business that see increased sales. Or the government itself that can collect taxes on all of it.
A large amount of foreign income being spent in a local economy may cause temporary disruptions to the status quo but is overall a good thing. It shouldn't really be a surprise that governments worldwide are encouraging it.
From the government's perspective it may be a wash. If rents go up, home values go up, and homes are also usually owned by natives, so from that perspective it's a transfer from one group of natives to another. And if home values go up it means the government collects more revenue from property taxes and home value appreciation taxes.
Don't know that op means but I can relate. Not long ago I was searching for an apartment to rent in my hometown to move closer to my workplace and I noticed that prices went crazy high compared to few years ago, so high that I can't afford them anymore. Students have demonstrated by mounting camping tents near the universities to protest the lack of affordable housing. I'm quite sure it's because owners prefer to rent to tourists than locals (higher income and no taxes, depending on the owner's compliance).
Cities like Venice lost their original character as many locals preferred to move out of the historical center to reduce the cost of living.
Other cities like Florence don't allow new bed and breakfasts to be registered, to try and control housing costs.
