Job Discussion Forums

[fpshangzhou]

Hey there Teflers,

It's that time of year again, job search party. I've noticed a trend that I hadn't seen as much in recent years. The big 5 cities seem to be offering 12k-20k, with the typical benefits, but the the one difference is 25-hour teaching hours and 15 hours of office time. What are your thoughts?

Cheers,
Aaron

[donkeydonkey]

what types of jobs are you referencing? I have not seen this in university postings, but I guess that is to be expected. Is this primarily public high school jobs?

[fpshangzhou]

Actually, they are training centers. Public schools don't offer those kind of salaries. I guess it's because rent is so high, which brings the net salary down to 10k-12k. Taxes are another thing that I'm checking out. I'm not sure how much taxes the tier-three cities deduct. It probably depends on the pay rate per month.

[donkeydonkey]

Pretty interesting,
Im at a university in a third tier city with a very low cost of living. After taxes I make 9525 for 22 hrs. Low utilities and low food costs let me bank about 8k a month. i work monday through thursday and am off fri, sat, sun. I work privates on friday to make a little more which adds another 3200 into the savings I would say around 11k a month in savings. Im guessing that i would have to make maybe around 18k to bank the same in a tier 1 with the difference in cost of living. Makes the third tier city university look pretty good in my opinion.
Edit: I should add that I have a master's degree and experience so I am not looking at entry level jobs.

[Markness]

More like 10 or 15 hour work week here. Tues - Fri mornings only, 16k a month and the missus and I are able to safely save about 10,000 a month of that (no problem!).

I should work more but I am a lazy mustard and am addicted to reading/watching movies/playing video games.

Oh yeah, just got a summer gig too in CQ that offers 300/per 45 minute class plus 5000 every two weeks as a bonus. There are lots of good jobs around if you keep looking. Most of the training schools spam the job boards, but just ignore them and look around for decent public school jobs. They exist, if the offer is low it is because it is in the sticks or a greedy recruiter is in the way. I am in the du' and I know there are other jobs around like this in my city. I'd say the standard at a public school around here is 10-14,000 a month for 15 hours a week. In the bigger cities if they didn't cough up more then I wouldn't even bother. They can afford to pay more, the students are paying a ton and there is an insane amount of inflation. Inflation ain't a joke.

[jimpellow]

As you know, training centers like Web have always required the 25 plus 15 hours mostly so a sufficient number of marketable foreign devils are near the front doors behind glass. My Web made you work them if you were a screw-up living paycheck to paycheck, and not have to if you were liked and had options.

I liked my FAO and catching up with him last year he stated that salaries had only gone up 500RMB from 2008, and that they were going to start making all the teachers work the 40. I found out through a friend that the average quality of teacher now there was possibly even lower than when I was there doing my fair share to drive it down. I thought this was odd as you would think they were in no postion to drive more teachers away. And you are correct, I have seen this requirement for training centers stated more often up front.

My theory is that this is Chinese il-logic at work. Salaries are somewhat rising(though not enough in terms of initial startup costs and inflation) and the initial and subsequent overhead for teachers has risen dramatically. I think the bosses are of the opinion that if they need to pay so much for a foreign teacher, then it becomes the duty of the teacher to give them their money's worth.

If this will actually play out like they expect I have my doubts. The times are interesting for those in the PRC ESL market I think.

[SH_Panda]

[Markness]