Job Discussion Forums

[sheikh radlinrol]

I wonder how many of you work for yourselves and how many are in so-called schools earning peanuts. It's really not so difficult to set up as an ''autonomo''. It'll cost you about 212 euros a month for the Social Security and then you're away. Spanish people value a good teacher and I'm sure they don't really care which ''academia'' you are with as long as YOU look after THEM. Go for it! I'd like to hear your views, especially those of of Moore, who seems au fait with what goes on here.
Saludos
El Jeque

[Moore]

There are several big drawbacks to working freelance (autonomo):

First, you have to pay the 220 euros per month social security contribution, whether you have work or not (which is at least 2 months total work time with all the holidays here in Spain). You have to add to this all the time you have to spend on admin. stuff (you have to do a three-monthly tax return): you can do it yourself, but most people recommend getting an accountant to do it for you, so that's 120 every three months. Basically you have to have a good head for figures (which is not my case and it's killing me!)

Second, many business companies (which are the main employer) will not pay an autonomo directly: they prefer to pay limited companies (no idea why, but it's definitely the case). Also, they know that the schools are falling over themselves to keep their contracts, so they can easily swap the teacher should they decide they don't like him/her any more, or if that person gets ill, or if that person decides to go back to their own country. Basically the training departments in companies just want a quiet life, and academies take on all that stress for them.

Third, with the rising demand for teachers here, wages have nudged up somewhat. It's quite easy to find 16-17 euros/hour on a contract now, and with working for an academy you do get certain advantages: they have a bigger range than you, so if one contract dies a death they can find you more work easily. Also, they are, more or less, going to pay you on time, which is not something you can always say about companies, even big well-known ones. It's common to hear among autonomo teachers stories of being owed 2 or even three months money by a company, which obviously can add up to a lot of cash.

All that said, if you really intend to stay here long term, then autonomo is definitely the way forward: I have to be autonomo because of my company and because I do freelance translation, and being an autonomo opens up those possibilities. Also, the amount of money going through your bank account every month is higher, which can be very important if you intend to buy an apartment here, as your bank will look at that in order to decide how much to lend you.

But I have to be honest and say that I'd much rather be on a nice safe contract and not have all the headaches of all the admin stuff.

[sheikh radlinrol]

Some interesting comments from Moore, especially regarding the preference companies have for dealing with other companies and not ''autonomos''.
Personally, I don't find the 3-monthly declaration too difficult and do it myself. Obviously, the annual declaration I can't do- but I remember in the nineties getting it done for 5,000 pesetas.
On the subject of translation work, I remember looking at a correspondence course in English-Spanish translation many years ago.
I don't know if the company offering the course still exists. I don't imagine the title has any official value but translation is tricky and the course could be useful. Many people don't like translation work but it seems to me an obvious complement to the teaching. Any info. or comments would be appreciated.
My OP reflects my disgust at the salaries paid to teachers. The school owners will say it's a free market and you aren't obliged to do it but most EFL teachers are University graduates with foreign languages skills doing a job which involves dealing with the public. Unskilled factory workers earn more. It's also my experience that the schools offer little in the way of support other than a teacher's book and a cassette(CD) and nothing in terms of training and professional development.

[Moore]

I only do Spanish to English translating, as do the vast majority of the native English translators I know (and I think most companies prefer this too). It's rather badly paid, the only real advantage being that you can do it from anywhere, and it can fill in the gaps in your schedule, but it's a lonely sort of job, normally concerning very dry boring documents, usually with a tight schedule to work towards. I do it to supplement my wages, as I think many people do, and it'll pay for a holiday/new computer once in a while.

The wages here are not great, but they're not all terrible either, it just depends on how far you spread your net, but there are schools out there who really do make a genuine effort to support the teachers and pay a decent wage and more importantly, decent blocked-together hours (finding them is the hard part though!).

That said, I have to agree that there are some shocking deals out there though, where schools offer a seemingly good deal on a fixed salary, then you end up working for 9 euros an hour when they inevitably cram your schedule to bursting point with bitty hours all over Madrid's most distant suburbs.

Good teachers are in short supply here (at least in Madrid they are) and so it's really a question of sniffing out the best deals possible, and the more of us who do this, the more schools may sit up and realize that people won't just accept any old cr*p job offers and start competing with the offers that other, better schools are making.

[Moore]

(oops..double posting...)