Job Discussion Forums

[fabdi_2]

Hi All:

I was offered a job with WSI in Jakarta for $1300 but I need to pay airfare and rent. Is this a good salary in Indonesia? I have debts to pay off so is this enough to pay rent/food/transportation in Jakarta and save money to pay my bills?

Any advise on WSI?

Thanks

[travelNteach]

all of these issues have been covered and quite recently. i realize the it is impossible to read all threads on a board, but if u had made a small effort u would have found all your answers.

"What do you think of this contract" talks around the legal requirement for return airfare.

"Who is saving money and how" has a lively discussion about teaher salaries and expenses.

Both of these threads have had entries since july 23. so it wouldnt have taken much effort on your part.

right now, the rupiah is quite strong against the dollar. are they paying u us dollars or rupiah? they used to start at 13 million rupiah. this would be about 1,500 dollars at the current rate.

also, we have no idea how much your debts are back home, what type of lifestyle u want to lead (travelling out, dining, clubbing, etc), or what part of jakarta u will be living in or what type of accomadations are acceptable for u. will a little boarding house room do for u, an apt, a small house, what?

so u are asking completely impossible to answer questions. our time is just as valuable as yours. take the time to read some of the threads. ask follow up questoins on them. or come back here with more specific information and questions and i am sure everyone will be happy to help out, even thouhgh this topic has been beaten to death and covered many, many times in the past.

[Bubble81]

Hi Fabdi_2,

I currently work for WSI Jakarta and have done for over 2 years now. In answer to your questions the salary is one which you can definately afford to live on in Jakarta.

Most teachers live close to the centers in which they teach so that transportation costs are not really an issue - plus transport in Jakarta is cheap. How much you will be able to save really depends on your lifestyle. Many of the teachers here send money back home every month to cover credit card bills or pay student debts and some teachers save nothing at all, choosing instead to go for Sunday brunches in 5* hotels and taking trips down to Bali. You could do both if you sent home less and travelled a little less. You will however be easily able to afford your bills, rent and the essentials and have money left over.

One of the great benefits of working for WSI is that you work in a professional center with great resources and really awesome staff - both native speakers and Indo staff. In addition to that they give great training to teachers and speaking for myself my teaching has definately improved thanks to WSI.

Hope that helps with your decision

[MrMrLuckyKhan]

[Durian Tango]

Many teachers get by on a whole lot less than what you've been offered and are still able to save some, but it all comes down to lifestyle.

If you eat a lot of street food, take the bus, travel economy and don't do too much clubbing then you can get by without spending too much. Much of it comes down to accomodation though. Those that stay in kos-kosans, which are boarding houses, often only have to pay 200-350 dollars a month which includes everything - like laundry, cleaning, electicity, water, internet and more. Those that stay in apartments often pay more, but they get some nice facilities and their home is their castle.

It also depends on where you live. Those in the city center may end up spending more on accomodation and life, whereas those a bit farther out may find life isn't very expensive at all.

When I first arrived in Jakarta 5 years ago, I was making 900 dollars a month at a local school and was able to send money home to pay off my student loans while also travelling the country extensively during my vacation periods.

[malu]

[Durian Tango]

You make a very valid point Malu. It's true that I've generally lived life on the cheap, taking a Kopaja bus to work and scrubbing my own clothes - all in the name of saving money so I could travel extensively and pay off student loans.

As we all know though, Indonesia is no South Korea or Saudi Arabia. Most teachers aren't going to make big bucks here and be able to retire to a swanky villa in Bali. If you live and work in Indonesia as a TEFL teacher, the general draw is the friendly people, the lovely climate, the incredible adventures, the hot stone massages, the bountiful fruit and the fact that 5 people can ride on one motorbike together.

That being said, budgeting your money, picking up some side work and living in reasonably priced accomodation means one can still live quite comfortably and even be able to save (though once you have a family, obviously this becomes more challenging).

I'm still single and without kids, so I can only speak from this perspective.

[travelNteach]

i lived that lifestyle once and it was exciting and i was proud that i could live the same as lower middle class/poor indonesians. my languages skills blossomed. indo is a great place to be and i have been here a long time.

however, i think it is misleading to newbies to describe your lifestyle as comfortable. taking unsafe public transportation, scrubbing your own laundry, being extremely frugal, living in a kos (mini studio), working 2 jobs............. not my idea of comfortable. living in a nice house/apt with live in maid, having own transport or taking ac taxis, working one job, eating out whenever i like and still travelling both domesticall and internationally is what i call comfortable. the life u describe is barely getting by.......... the lifestyle that people are trying to escape. the only difference is that it is in an exotic location. for me and others that is enough, but i think people having expectations like the EF ads will be seriously disillusioned when they arrive.

i think the hardest thing is that every indo person u run into thinks that u are on a big US dollar salary like the people in oil and mining companies. they dont realize that teachers get paid very little and that middle class indos earn more money. even when u take the time to explain it to them, they still cant wrap their heads around that there are poor white people running around in indonesia.

there are jobs here in teaching that do allow for comfortable lifestyes. i am fortunate to have one. the starting salary at wall street is doable, depending on how much the OP needs to pay per month. it is definately much better that EF and some of the lower end language schools pay.

i hope the OP still comes, but has expectations closer to what reality is. u can live and save here. u can live like a local and enjoy life and have a great time. u can send money back home. but it wont exactly be comfortable or cushy. u will have to live in lower end housing and budget carefully. if u travel u will be more backpacking than jetsetting. and u might have to work 2 jobs if u want to have luxuries. sending money back home, u can forget a car, mototcycle, hd tv or other such things. but a 21'' tv is good enough for me

[extradross]

1300 dollars is poor for Jakarta, especially of you have to pay for accomodation! Wall street is a planks outfit, another example of image over substance-this franchise has been expanding rapidly in Asia, students like it but they offer crap to middling pay wherever you look...Thailand, Saudi. On that salary you won't be having the executive lunches on Jalan Sudirman, if that's the branch you'd be working for....

[sidjameson]

I am in a state of shock! I am not qualified to teach here. Seems that the country where once just being white, even if that was being an Hungarian docker was enough to get a job has now raised the bar to above any other country including Japan.

Got this today.


It�s nice to hear from you and thank you for your interest in the Wall Street Institute. In regards to your recent application to join the Wall Street Institute, I need to ask you one quick question before moving on to the next step: could you confirm whether your BA is in English Literature, Modern Languages (English), Education (English focused), ESL or Linguistics (English)? I�m afraid the government of Indonesia is only allowing us to hire teachers with degrees in one of these fields at the moment, so it�s important for me to check this before we get too far into the process

[extradross]

That's the way it's going here-no more Hungarian dockers hired as teachers! All the more reason for the 'suitably qualified' at least as far as the government are concerned to push for higher salaries....reckon 17 mill should be the benchmark, maybe a little less if housing is provided.

[Insubordination]

If salaries went up, I would be straight over there. They're going to need people if they enforce that educational stipulation. Does Wall Street Jakarta use the same annoying teaching method used by Wall Street in other parts of the world?

[Zorobabel]

The GDP per capita in Jakarta is about 6 million rupiah per month according to the BPS. However, the average wage/salary for all workers in Jakarta is 2 million (BPS). This is a result of the huge income disparity in the city. However, if you make above than $12,000 per year, you are making more money than 90% of Jakarta's working population.

It's certainly true, though, that wages for ESL teachers do not seem to be keeping up with inflation or the average growth in salaries for the rest of the country. Average salaries for Indonesians, for example, have nearly tripled since 2000.

[Madame J]

[Madame J]

Oh, and I'm still wondering what on earth the immigration department has taken to seriously think that Indonesia has enough pulling power to command stricter teacher control than South Korea/Japan. The DoSes will have no-one working for them soon.