Paid work abroad: what is it, why should you do it and where is the best place to go?
What is paid work abroad?
- Paid work abroad means that you have a temporary or permanent job with a foreign employer or that you have been sent abroad by an employer from your home country.
- For your work you generally receive compensation in the form of salary, expense allowance, or, for example, board and lodging. In addition, the better jobs may also reimburse you for your travel to and/or from work.
Why should you go to work abroad for pay?
- To gain experience: abroad your work experience increases within your own field but generally beyond. You experience much more during your stay abroad when you go to work than if you were already traveling around.
- To strengthen your empathy: by working in another culture, you often strengthen your own ability to put yourself in another person's shoes. The differences in culture, ways of working, and ways of communicating make you accept or take other pieces as they are more quickly. Your own perspective quickly becomes wider, broader and, in particular, more flexible.
- To increase your stress resistance: you regularly work under reasonable or great pressure; working in a different culture can be a drain on your stress resistance. Especially due to pressures that may arise because you have to communicate in a different language, perform new work, or receive limited coaching. Yet for almost everyone, these experiences contribute to greatly increasing your stress resilience precisely because of them.
- To discover and accept your own qualities: the further away from your familiar surroundings, the faster you get an idea of what you can actually do and what you really want. It is precisely by going to work that you encounter yourself more often, get to know
What do you need if you want to work abroad?
- Flexibility: leave with some flexibility, the rest you will gain during your stay abroad.
- Communication skills: depending on the type of work, you will need a reasonable to good command of the local language.
- Independence and/or self-confidence: you already need some form of independence, and your self-confidence will grow through it.
- Being environmentally aware: an important element for your stay abroad.
- Collaborative ability: it is important that you learn or can work together with others when abroad.
To what extent are you insured for risks when doing paid work abroad?
- There may be several reasons why you need separate insurance when doing paid work abroad:
- During work, internship or volunteer work abroad, in many cases, you will then need special insurance to remain insured for illness and accidents.
- Local employers usually offer no, or limited, additional insurance.
- The risk of accidents is present because you are doing work with which you have little experience, for example.
- Some specialized insurances offer opportunities to do (temporary) paid work abroad. See the pages on insuring paid work abroad and the pages on your medical expenses abroad.
- Read more: travel insurances and insurances for long term abroad - Theme
- Read more: betaald werken in het buitenland verzekeren (NL)
What are the most popular countries to do paid work abroad?
- Country per country overview
- Australia: working holiday, agricultural work, health care
- Austria: tourism, winter sports
- Canada: working holiday, agricultural work
- Curacao: hospitality, communication
- France: tourism, agricultural work (fruit picking), au pair
- Greece: hospitality, tourism
- Italy: tourism, winter sports, teaching (English), au pair
- New Zealand: working holiday, health care
- Portugal: tourism, helpdesks
- South Africa: tourism, helpdesks
- Spain: hospitality, tourism, teaching (English)
- Switzerland: tourism, winter sports
- Thailand: teaching
- United States: working holiday, au pair
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