ESL jobs sit in a strange place in the labour market. On one hand, they can be genuinely life-changing: a route into stable work, international experience, and meaningful contribution. On the other, they can expose workers to some of the sharpest edges of modern employment: opaque recruitment chains, unclear contracts, debt-financed relocation, and power imbalances that make it hard to walk away.
If you run a language school, place teachers overseas, or hire international staff into UK-based education and support roles, ethical recruitment is not just a “nice to have”. It is increasingly a reputational, operational, and legal issue — and the risks are not always where people expect them to be.
Modern slavery is often imagined as hidden and extreme. In reality, serious exploitation can sit uncomfortably close to “normal” business practices: excessive recruitment fees, misleading terms, withheld documents, coercive accommodation arrangements, or threats tied to immigration status. The harm can be quiet, incremental, and hard to spot unless you know what to look for.
A strong starting point for understanding what actually detects risk (rather than just producing paperwork) is modern slavery compliance.
Why ESL recruitment is especially vulnerable to exploitation
ESL work often involves at least one of these conditions:
- cross-border hiring, relocation, and visa sponsorship
- short contracts or seasonal demand
- agencies, sub-agents, and informal recruiters
- candidates who are early-career, unfamiliar with local norms, or financially stretched
- accommodation bundled with employment
- rapid hiring needs and high turnover
None of that automatically means wrongdoing. But it creates a perfect environment for “invisible” exploitation, because the worker may have fewer realistic alternatives once they arrive. If they have borrowed money to pay fees, moved far from support networks, or depend on a sponsor, they may tolerate conditions they would otherwise refuse.
For employers, that creates a risk you cannot outsource. Even if you contract with a recruiter, the ethical and legal consequences can still land on you if the supply chain is not properly controlled.
The difference between compliance and protection
A lot of organisations respond to modern slavery obligations by producing statements, checklists, and supplier questionnaires. Some of that is necessary. But compliance is not the same as protection.
The practical question is: Would your current process detect a recruiter charging illegal fees, coercing candidates, or misrepresenting the job? If the honest answer is “probably not”, then the process is functioning as paperwork, not safeguarding.
Audit approaches that genuinely surface risk tend to have a few features:
- they prioritise worker voice and lived experience over self-reported supplier claims
- they look for red flags in recruitment and payment flows, not just contracts
- they test what happens in practice (accommodation, hours, deductions, grievance routes)
- they include follow-up, remediation, and consequences, not just “pass/fail” scoring
That is why modern slavery work cannot be left to annual statements alone. It needs to sit inside everyday recruitment governance.
Recruitment fees: the first major red flag in ESL hiring
One of the clearest indicators of risk in cross-border hiring is who pays which costs.
In ethical recruitment models, candidates should not be paying large “placement” fees to access work. Where they do, debt can become the lever that traps them. Even if the employer did not charge the fee directly, the harm is real — and the employer may still be in the chain that made it possible.
If you hire ESL teachers through agencies, a simple but powerful control is to require written confirmation that:
- the worker did not pay a recruitment fee (or, if any costs were paid, exactly what and why)
- no sub-agents were used without disclosure and approval
- the candidate received contract terms in a language they understand, before travel
- no identity documents were retained by intermediaries
Then you must test it in a way that does not expose workers to retaliation. That means confidential worker interviews, anonymous surveys, or independent speaking-up routes.
Contracts and reality: where exploitation often hides
ESL employers sometimes assume that a clear contract solves everything. Contracts matter, but exploitation often hides in the gap between written terms and lived reality.
Look closely at common pressure points:
Hours and workload: Are “contact hours” presented as the job, while preparation, marking, admin and unpaid “availability” expand the real working day?
Deductions: Are deductions for accommodation, transport, materials, or “admin” clearly explained, proportionate, and legally compliant?
Accommodation ties: If housing is linked to the job, can a worker refuse it, change it, or leave it without losing employment? If not, the power imbalance increases.
Exit routes: Can the worker resign without punitive penalties? Are there threats about references, immigration consequences, or repayment clauses?
Passport retention and document control: Any retention of passports or coercive control over identity documentation should be treated as a serious safeguarding issue.
None of these questions are about catching employers out. They are about designing a recruitment and employment experience that stays fair even when workers have limited power.
What “good” looks like for ESL employers and recruiters
Ethical recruitment is not mysterious. It is mostly about clarity, consistency, and giving people safe ways to speak.
Here is a practical model that works well in education settings:
1) Map your recruitment chain
Know exactly who sources candidates, who interviews, who processes visas, who arranges flights, who provides housing, and who handles payroll. If you cannot name the sub-agents, you do not control the risk.
2) Publish non-negotiables
Set clear standards for recruiters and partners, including a strict ban on worker-paid recruitment fees, document retention, and misleading job advertising.
3) Put “worker voice” into auditing
Questionnaires alone are weak. Build routine, confidential ways to hear from workers (especially new starters) about fees, pressure, and expectations.
4) Make contracts readable and early
Provide core terms before travel, in accessible language. Include pay, hours, deductions, accommodation terms, and a realistic description of workload.
5) Create safe reporting routes
Workers should be able to raise concerns without going through the same manager who controls their rota or visa paperwork.
6) Act on what you learn
If you find an issue, remediation matters. Refund fees. change suppliers. adjust practices. train managers. Paperwork without action is how risk repeats.
The role of technology: when systems can help or harm
Many ESL employers now rely on platforms for scheduling, performance monitoring, and communication. Used well, technology can reduce confusion. Used badly, it can intensify pressure and hide poor practice behind “the system”.
A few examples:
- scheduling tools that change shifts with little notice can make workers effectively “on call”
- automated performance scoring may punish teachers for factors outside their control (class size, learner needs, timetabling)
- “always-on” messaging can blur boundaries and raise stress
- opaque metrics can make workers feel managed by a black box, not supported by humans
Where technology is introduced without explanation or consultation, trust collapses quickly. People assume the worst, especially if they already feel precarious.
For a broader look at how workers experience tech rollouts when they have little voice, see: AI rollouts.
The lesson for ESL employers is straightforward: if you use data-driven tools, you need safeguards. Explain what is measured, why it matters, how context is considered, and how decisions can be challenged.
A useful checklist for hiring managers in ESL settings
If you want a simple way to reduce risk without turning recruitment into a bureaucracy, use this checklist as a reality test:
- Can every candidate explain the job, pay, hours, and deductions before travel?
- Can the candidate confirm they paid no recruitment fee to access the role?
- Do you know whether any sub-agent was involved?
- Do workers have a safe route to report issues that bypasses line management?
- Do you review deductions and accommodation terms for fairness and legality?
- Can a worker leave accommodation without risking their job?
- Do you have a clear, humane resignation and exit process?
- Do you have evidence from workers (not just suppliers) that standards are being met?
If you cannot confidently answer most of these, it does not mean harm is happening. It means you would struggle to detect harm if it did.
Why this matters beyond compliance
ESL employers are often proud of being international, inclusive, and people-focused. Ethical recruitment is a direct extension of that identity.
When recruitment is fair and transparent:
- retention improves because people feel respected and stable
- quality improves because teachers are not exhausted or fearful
- reputation improves because word-of-mouth hiring becomes positive
- risks reduce because problems surface early, not after crisis
- learners benefit because staff are supported, not stretched
Modern slavery risk is not only a legal and moral issue. It is a quality-of-work and quality-of-learning issue. Exploitation produces churn. Churn undermines teaching continuity. Teaching continuity is central to learner outcomes.
The takeaway
ESL work can be a pathway to opportunity — but only when recruitment is ethical and employment is genuinely fair. The greatest risk is not always the dramatic headline case. It is the everyday normalisation of practices that leave workers with no real choice.
If you want recruitment that protects people rather than just producing paperwork, focus on the hard-to-fake signals: worker voice, fee transparency, supply chain clarity, safe reporting, and real remediation when things go wrong.
And if you only do one thing this month: speak to your newest hires confidentially about fees, pressure, and what they were promised. If there is a gap between promise and reality, fix that gap fast.