Job Discussion Forums

[H5N1]

[vabeckele]

[LettersAthruZ]

It's not horrible, but, truthfully? Yeah, over the past 12 - 18 months, there has been a major flood of new ESL teachers onto these shores (Tay ESL teachers in Tier Two and Tier Three sized cities out in the provinces here in The North......places where [except for myself] they'd NEVER been seen in the past).

It HAS INDEED made the demand for Tay teachers a lot softer and HAS INDEED placed downward pressure on wages and salaries (there are places in Ha Noi and Hai Phong that are paying $1100USD - $1300USD a month [lodging with about 10 roommates is included in the compensation package] for 100 classroom hours per month).

That's eleven to thirteen dollars an hour, folks

That's a fact and that's just the way it is!!

I am NOT TRYING TO DISSUADE people from considering teaching here, nor do I believe that Kurtz, Vabeckele or anybody else here is, but as I have said several times over: DO AN "INVESTIGATORY" TRIP HERE FIRST BEFORE running home and packing up all your stuff and coming here! Otherwise, if you just land here totally blind, you could be in for a very rude awakening......



While, yes, it COULD possibly be seen that any attempts to steer new English teachers away from Viet Nam may be in the interest of established instructors (doesn't really affect me at all - I freelance ONLY), there are also "Coordinator" or "Director's Assistant" types who are Westerners who will make about a dollar or two more per hour than the regular teachers earn. Part of their job description (in addition to buddying-up to the Tay teaching staff) is to go on the Internets and blather that jobs are easy pickins round these parts, as this creates a supply glut and, thusly, has the effect of depressing ESL Instructor wages and salaries.

A few of these aforementioned Coordinator / Assistant to the Director types have been removed form some of the ESL teachers boards in the past year or so.

[Riding One]

[sokunen]

Can I hijack on this thread real quick and ask those in here what the going rate is for a foreigner to get a work permit? I'm in a situation here in VN (serious lapse of communication from my employer that is leaving me underprepared for my work situation) and now it looks like I either will have to leave in a few weeks when my 3-month expires or try to figure out a work permit. They're telling me it could cost upwards of $610 -- and that's discounted, apparently?? But I've checked some other sites and I'm seeing 400,000 VND for a work permit app. I can't even find straightforward stuff from various VN embassy/government websites about what it should cost -- I'm only finding out what I need to apply, and then see this 400k charge attached to it.

[sigmoid]

[skarper]

I think there has been a decline in wages everywhere. Vietnam is perhaps worse than some places but I suspect because the wages had further to fall in real terms.

Teaching jobs in Japan have been routinely offering 250 000 yen a month for a long time now. I think that probably has the buying power of about 1000 USD here - maximum.

On 1000 USD here you will scrape by as long as you have cheap accomodation and no expensive habits. Not really living though.

250000 yen a month in Tokyo would be a struggle. You'd need extra private lessons or you'd be losing money every month.

Korea was pretty good 5 years ago but a fall in the won was never mitigated by higher wages. They are only slightly higher than the 2.2M won + benefits that had for a while been the norm.

UK EFL is effectively a minimum wage job - �10 an hour for a job with prep time and supervision/admin often required for free.

Europe is subsistence level pretty much everywhere.

There is much talk of 'recovery' but it is just talk. The global economy is in ruins and will never regain levels that were normal 10 years ago.

Vietnam is suffering more than some places and far more than any published indicators will tell us. But where is there a better deal?

Some people can 'go home' and get a real job but quite a lot of us just can't (or would rather muddle along doing something we enjoy).

It is certainly very uncertain and I'm sure most married people are delaying having children. It can be hard to get this through to Vietnamese wives who are steeped in a culture of 'family' and whose parents and grandparents managed to raise children in quite incredible hardship. But it is different for westerners.

An old joke is that the difference between a large pizza and an EFL teacher is the pizza can feed a family of 4.

Truer and truer every day.

[ExpatLuke]

Where is it better? The Middle East of course. Go there and earn your 50-80 thousand dollars per year.

And to the person who made the "well thought out" claim that people who are teaching here now won't be here in 5 years, some of us are in great positions and have no plans to leave, and I'd say even more of us are here for reasons other than money.