Job Discussion Forums

[Hod]

It�s taken a while but I now realise that I�m doing OK here. As a part-time freelancer, my school pays 25+ Euro per 45 minutes and it�s a nice school in a cheap city.

Thinking the grass might be greener, I enquired about teaching elsewhere in Germany. I am disgusted by most of the offers. Scot47 rightly says a family man would starve teaching here. Let me add to that: How can free and easy singles survive on the pittance some schools are paying?

First, I was offered a job at a well-known Hamburg school paying 13 Euro per hour freelance (no extras such as medical insurance) � binned. Next, a school in Essen invited me for interview and sent nine pages of information. I was nearly convinced. I could even sit an �FTBE� exam for free. Just as well the job was tax-free because on page eight was the pay: 10-13 Euro per hour. Teachers are guaranteed 80 hours per month as a �safety net�. Let�s do some sums:

@13 Euro per hour, in one month you�d earn* **

80 hours a month = 1040 Euro Gross (752 Pounds or 1198 US Dollars)

20 hours a week = 1127 Euro Gross (815 Pounds or 1298 US Dollars)

30 hours a week = 1690 Euro Gross (1222 Pounds or 1947 US Dollars)

* plus travel expenses and they pay extras such as 50% health insurance
** minus about 15% for social and health insurance

You could live quite well working 30 hours a week teaching all over some city, but then again, no thanks. I don�t know if Germany has any Western Union�s but anyone doing 20-25 hours a week at that place can perhaps let us know. You can write how nice your school is, and about the great courses you�ll send your valued teachers on, I�d prefer not to live in a lonely bedsit tucking into my beans on toast. I�m an EU citizen and speak pretty good German. I could work in the local McDonalds and make more than 13 Euro per hour.

I once popped into a Thailand branch of inlingua for a chat. For business classes, inlingua Bangkok were offering teachers (qualified or not) 500 baht per 50 minutes, just over 10 Euro. Some of you Germany school owners are paying exactly the same as a very average school in Thailand, where the cost of living is many many times lower.

So, who�s to blame, the schools or the teachers? Anyone na�ve enough to accept 10-13 Euro per hour, McDonalds money, really should be asking questions like, �All that money paid by the students or companies, where is it going?� As for the schools, my employer charges 40 Euro per hour. I could be totally wrong but I�ll assume that�s the going rate. So, your teachers are taking home 25-33% of that. I appreciate your admin costs and having to make a profit, etc. The figures, however, don�t lie. Ladies and Gentleman, you�re paying peanuts.

I get five or six e-mails a week asking about teaching here. I�m normally so positive and hated writing this message. School owners, please prove me wrong or justify these low wages you�re paying.

Big Mac anyone?

[email protected]

[scot47]

Last night I was discussing this with a colleague here in Saudi Arabia. Before coming here he worked in Dusseldorf with Inlingua. In one year he saved 2000 Euro. He can save ten times that here.

Enough said. Germany is just not on as a realistic place to work as an EFL teacher.

[rogan]

There's worse -
Inlingua in France pays between 8 and 13 Euros an hour for the honour of traipsing all over the city at godawful times.

[Hod]

It made me smile. I was chatting today with a former teacher of one school in my initial post. (Just to recap, I turned down an opportunity to teach and travel all over Hamburg for 13 Euros per hour classroom time, before tax). This other teacher, with the same sort of experience, was offered 15 Euros an hour to start, and was shocked to hear about my offer. At the time, the school tried to make me feel so guilty about dumping them. How na�ve I must�ve been.

Anyway, I�ll try to be positive as I like it here and work at a very good school. If you�re offered a job, speak to as many teachers there as possible. Ask about the school, the facilities, conditions, everything. It�s quite acceptable to ask about pay. If, as I was, you�re offered a lower starting rate than similar teachers, you are being ripped off. You can only achieve all this by being in Germany. Surfing and posting on Dave�s, you�ll be but scraping the surface.

Remember, schools are businesses. They�ll be smiley and nice, whilst trying to pay you as little as possible. With the exception of Government places, e.g. VHS or Universities, rates of pay should always be open to negotiation.

I�m (usually) happy to answer e-mails. As I say, I like it here. I still maintain what I wrote: Many schools are paying peanuts. If you find one paying over 20 Euros per 45 minutes, you�re doing OK.

[Ann]

Hod and scot,
Thanks for your realistic opinion about life in Germany. I think people expect the positive all the time and want to ignore the realistic and practical part of living in a foreign country.
The salary information you provided was excellent. I have a way of measuring up against some "standard" now.
I will be in the German job market in early 2005 when I move to Germany. I don't know what the situation will be like then but I can predict that it won't be very pretty. I am not concerned about absolutely getting a job because I can get by with freelance work. I just don't want to sit at home or volunteer my services.
I hope you keep posting current information here so that I have some way of knowing what's going on through your informed persons.
By the way, what's the attraction of coming to Germany? What about marriage?

[scot47]

I am often accused of being "negative" for pointing out the problems. In my view I am a realist. For the Pollyannas amongst you let me remind you that life in Germany is hard. Acknowledging that does not mean that I am anti anything.

[fluffhead]

Hod...I'd like to find out which McDonald's pays 13 euros an hour, that's got to be the best McD's to work at in Germany. When I was last there, just over a year ago, crap jobs were paying something like 7 euros an hour. I was in E. Germany though, and I think that wages have yet to catch up.

When I started in Germany in '99, Inlingua was hiring teachers for 18-20 marks an hour!(9-10 euros) Other schools often paid 25-30 marks. That was good money in the East. I did much better when I started doing jobs for people who went out and got their own contracts (no overhead). That's where the money is. When I left, I had a couple jobs paying 20 euros an hour, and that was more or equal to what anyone else was making.

I thought Germany was a gold mine.

[Hod]

Actually, I meant to say Burger King. OK, I�ll come clean. Maccy Dees don�t pay quite as well as I wrote. I still stand by my inlingua Bangkok comment though.

I�ve never lived in the old East Germany but I really can�t fathom how it can be as cheap as all these schools claim. A can of soup costs two Euro in Wal-Mart, whether it be in Erfurt or Frankfurt. The only savings will be in accommodation and how much are we really talking about?

There are jobs currently advertised in Halle paying 11.50 an hour with 100 hours a month guaranteed. That�s easy maths = peanuts. That school in Halle, OK it�s inlingua, is paying LESS than inlingua Bangkok! Believe me, Bangkok is many many times cheaper than the poorest German backwater. Something ain�t right here.

Yes, doing your own thing, i.e. approaching and teaching companies yourself pays well. Why don�t more people do it?

[scot47]

My view that Germany is not a good place to work in seems to be confirmed by the truly pessimistic articles in recent copies of "Der Spiegel". They are predicting even harder times for Germany with increasing problems with unemployment and huge budget deficits.

The optimism of the Economic Miracle and the Triumphalism of Reunification have gone.

Those of us who take our picture from "Hogan's Heroes" might have a different vision, but I would advise that anyone thinking about heading to the "Berlin Republic" do their homework.

[Hod]

Well, I used to contribute a lot to this part of the forum before getting sick of roughing it out in Germany. Now in SE Asia, I'm actually saving more money than I was, with a now infinitely superior lifestyle.

Anyway, I didn't come on here to whinge aimlessly. I once posted this:

[fat_chris]

scot47,

In addition to your comments might I add a tidbit about the welfare reforms Schroder wants to pass through and the massive public backlash he is up against in doing so.

I would love to return to Germany and work but I think I will look into that when I am older with savings (will that ever happen?) and at a time when I would not be overly concerned with monetary issues (deja vu all over again: will that ever happen?).

Keep your Righteous Realism coming, old timer, you know I am a fan of yours!

[declineandfall]

To support and add to these comments:

I'd say there are three categories of EFL teachers in Germany.

1. Students of German, or people with German connections in the family, who just want to be here for a year or so, picking up a bit of teaching work to cover part of the expenses.

2. Those married to, or otherwise partnered with, a local.
In answer to Ann's enquiry, Germans tend to be clean, occasionally stimulating, and have excellent medical coverage. All things considered, they may well represent a better long-term marriage investment than, say, the Belgians or Welsh.

3. Those who have found themselves a company to work for directly.
This group started in categories 1 or 2, but stole a client from their 13-Euro school. This work can pay 50-60 Euros per 45-minute session: I've received this sort of money for extended periods myself. Two problems, though:
a) Boredom, embitterment and eventual loss of will to live. You'd better hope that your company makes an interesting widget, because you'll spend all your working life trying to encourage people to discuss it enthusiastically. I've been lucky here, but have recently got hit by:
b) Firms are currently annihilating their training budgets. It's a remarkable, and sudden, change, as if German industry has abandoned in the last few months the two things that made it special: massive investment and an obsession with training. For the first time in the 20 or so years my friends here can remember, experienced, qualified, German-speaking teachers don't have all the work they can take.

So at the moment, there's little chance of moving from 1) or 2) to 3). Those thinking of coming here should consider waiting until a lot of us have left or starved to death, and hope that the German economy isn't in terminal decline: there's evidence it may be, but it's probably too early to say.

There's more gloomy information from inside Germany on our bulletin board at http://www.tefl-germany.de. It can be summarised as: it's NOT an option to come here alone and make a living. If you really must live in Germany (if, for instance, you have exacting beer but low cultural expectations), a better strategy is to take the higher-paid job in Bangkok, make a leisurely choice amongst the German tourists (they are abundant), and enter straight into category 2).

[fat_chris]

[SueH]

English humour Chris, which suffers in the explanation...

[scot47]

Germany is actually not a bad place to study English "humour". At the University of Chemnitz the Department of "Anglistik und Amerikanistik" offered a seminar on "Why Monty Python Is Funny".

These Germans - so serious, even about Humour !