Job Discussion Forums

[Vietnamarama]

I was wondering if people could give me any up-to-date info about salary ranges and cost of accommodation in HCMC.

I have been in Vietnam for the last year teaching English, but not in HCMC. I have now been offered a job in HCMC. The job is full-time and if I take the job I would be teaching a range of school subjects at different high schools. I was told there would be a maximum of 25 teaching hours per week (mon-fri) but that the average would be around 15. Transport to and from the schools is provided. During office hours, one is expected to be in the office unless one is out teaching. So it really is full time in a way.

Could someone tell me what a reasonable salary for such a position might be? I would be teaching A level subjects, so something quite advanced. From what I have read on the forum, English teaching salaries are somewhere between $15 and $20 per hour in HCMC. Could one expect a higher salary for teaching science, mathematics, etc?

My second question is about the cost of an apartment or other type of accommodation. The office where I would be working from is in district 1., Nguyen Thi Minh Khai street to be precise. I would like to find some accommodation reasonably close so that I could walk to work or perhaps ride a bicycle. I don't need anything luxurious but do want a place where I can be comfortable.

If anyone could give any insights into salaries and accommodation that would be very much appreciated!

Cheers

[mark_in_saigon]

I will let others tackle the money question, your 15 to 20 seemed accurate enough, but the real question is about your need to hang out at the office. If you are required to be somewhere, you should be getting paid for your time, as you lose the opportunity to be somewhere else and making money. So unless I misunderstood on this (you said "out teaching", does this mean it is okay to be out teaching for pay for another school and NOT be in the office?), this is a way to have you available but not pay you. If that is the case, there is no way I would recommend this job. Perhaps others have some similar job requirements and can comment on this feature of your employment.

On housing, it is a mess. Using Craigslist is very tedious. The VN agencies flood the site with ads for apartments in the 20 to 30 dollar per square meter range, sometimes up to a dozen ads for the same unit. They are attempting to convince the expat community that is the normal price range. To the VN agencies, this is how a market works, not by supply and demand, but by deception, collusion and other nefarious practices. Those of us who are so out of touch that we pay two or three times as much as we should for other products may actually be overpaying for these units and keeping the deception alive. Recall, the average VN wage is something like $1,000 per year, not month, like 5% or something of what we earn. To think the average price of rent here is $1,000 per month is just ludicrous.

To get a more honest feel for prices, start with hotels. It is fine to stay with hotels until you work your way thru this mess. Your price may be more like $14 a square meter, but the electricity is paid and you can leave at any time, no long term commitment. They will usually negotiate down if you go by the month, and you may actually find you want to stay in a hotel long term, or just move from hotel to hotel just to enable you to explore different areas. It does take a while to find a proper deal on housing here, because the agencies are mostly focused on their scams. It is possible that the scam agencies will also feed you properly priced units if you prove you are not a sucker.

To all expats who are using these agencies, please be very open about telling them that you only want to see places that are really as advertised. Don't waste your time looking at places that they will not guarantee the status and financial terms of. If the pictures on the ad are not the pictures of the unit, they are deceiving you. If the lower priced unit is not available when you arrive, you will just turn around and leave. If the amount of money required for a deposit is unreasonable, you are not interested (big danger for us is getting back a deposit). If using CL, do a search on the ad you are looking at, if you find many identical copies of this ad, you know what kind of agency you are dealing with. The problem is, because no one regulates them (including CL, who makes it much harder to scam like this in the west, and is therefore central to this nightmare) they are all rather forced to work at the same level. A decent agent here is like a puppy among a pack of wolves. Just one horror story after another about dealing with the agents. However, the actual owners of the properties are not all scammers, (and maybe not even mostly) so the trick is just working your way thru the mess, and understanding the mentality of these agencies. Far better to use your own VN helper in the process, having him/her look for you, without you, at a VN rate of pay, and have you show up only when you have a viable opportunity. A VN can sniff out a scammer among their own people far more quickly than we can, and the scammers may crash the deal and save you both time when they see you have a professional process that is not susceptible to their practices.

It is also fine to run your own ad in housing wanted, where you can build in more control of your process, or to consider doing a share with another expat who has already gotten a decent thing going. The ads for shares usually reflect more reasonable terms, most of our guys do their homework it seems.

[LettersAthruZ]

[mark_in_saigon]

I am mostly independent also, I have done some work here for schools, but am not an expert on this question, but if this is common, people need to address this. I have seen it discussed a bit, but my knowledge is that it is not the standard process. I also have been encouraged to hang around for no obvious reason, with the promise of some kind of bonus, but not the normal hourly rate. It seems the reasons would be:

1 - so the parents dropping off and picking up see another foreign teacher, you are essentially a living and moving mannequin.

2 - for occasional tutoring at no additional cost for the students.

3 - for emergency back up use when another foreign teacher dematerializes.

The way I see it, if they have you scheduled to be there, you should be getting paid your normal rate.

[Vietnamarama]

Thanks for the replies.

I was not clear enough in my original post but Mark interpreted rightly what I said: The job is a full time jobs and I am expected to be at the office between 8am and 5:30pm (take a break around 11am I guess). I will be teaching around 20 hours per week for them so when I have a class at a school they will provide transport between the office and the school. I would not be able to do any other work unless it is in the evenings I guess.

I have just received an offer from China and it is the same deal. 20 hours of teaching and 20 hours of office work. I don't necessarily mind this provided I am being adequately compensated for my time.

So then I would like to ask: what is an appropriate salary for such a job in your opinion? I agree one should be paid for this time but I can also understand that it is perhaps not reasonable to expect the same rate of pay as when you are out teaching.

Thanks for all the helpful info regarding accommodation! If I took the job I would start by just staying in a hotel and then look around for something suitable. But could some people give me a ballpark figure of how much a 1 bedroom apartment SHOULD cost per month? I just want to get a rough idea of how much money I would have to spend on housing. I would prefer to have a place to myself rather than share.

Thanks again everyone!

[toiyeuthitmeo]

A small flat, especially conveniently located (D1, D3 or not far off), is going to be in the range of $400 (a bargain) to $600 / month (a bit steep). How you can spend less is finding a Vietnamese family with a large house and renting a room from them, sharing a house with some other expats, or getting really lucky.

Mark is totally correct. My Vietnamese friends here in my town find modest but totally livable rooms for $75 -$150 / month, and will often share these rooms with two or three others. But if it is not actually a law somewhere, it is certainly an unwritten law that Westerners are never going to get local prices to this effect.

[LettersAthruZ]