Korean Job Discussion Forums

[agoodmouse]

I went skiing last night and my Korean English teacher colleague told me he started working in the public school system in 1990 and he's making 44 million a year before taxes and deductions. I know Korean teachers get bonuses, but even with those added I would think they don't amount to more than 1 month's bonus pay. Even if bonuses are 2 month's bonus pay, I still don't think they make enough, especially regarding those who teach high school students and stay at school until 10:30pm and have essentially no lives.

[Justin Hale]

Indeed, Koreans earn peanuts.

http://www.korea.net/pda/newsView.asp?serial_no=20070206013&part=105

[bassexpander]

Then you marry a Korean, and learn that a large portion of their income goes either unreported or is shifted around under designations such as OT or OTHER.

You make Korean friends, and learn that many bosses are given company credit cards as entertainment perks. Free BJ's, courtesy of your local Chaebol. Company cars with drivers are given. Company-funded "business trips" to Thailand, where hookers are pre-booked by company agents alongside your hotel room (met a Korean woman who booked these things for a large Chaebol in Korea). Base income is but a small part of true income once you are middle-management, or are above middle-management.

These things are often reported in odd ways (or go unreported), although their base pay is small. They do this for tax reasons, and to save health care benefits -- what we in the west would call cheating, they call legal.

You go to a jeweler to buy a diamond ring for your wife, and the jeweler offers you a price of 3,500,000 if you pay cash, or 3,800,000 if you use a credit card. Of course, they hope you take the cash price, so they don't have to report the sale. If you pay by credit card, there is a record, and they have to pay tax. Many, many businesses do this, and whine and cry about how much money they're not making while they're actually making a great deal and avoiding tax. International companies get screwed in similar ways by locals.

My wife's company pays her a very, very small base wage, and shifts her pay around under certain categories so that she makes far more money per month than I do, yet the company pays less tax (and screws her on some benefits).

It's the average base that gets reported to newspapers. I'm convinced that this is what happens with many jobs above a certain level.

It's been my experience that there are a great many people who lie about their income in either direction, depending on which way it benefits them most. Some are poor and try to appear rich. Some are well-off, and they know it, but know how to fiddle with numbers for tax purposes.

In short, don't believe the numbers. The Koreans truly making money often hide how much they make.

[agoodmouse]

I've made sincere, honest friends. I am very close to this teacher, as his grandfather and mine both committed suicide the same way.

When I first came to Korea he asked about my grandfather and I told him of his suicide. He pulled over the car and wept and told me his father had done committed suicide the same way, that is, by drinking rat poison. He said he hadn't told anyone except his wife, and that was after marrying her.

He told me his salary, I believe him. I don't trust everything people say, but that's what he told me, and I know him and spend time with him every day and so I believe him.

[pkang0202]

The accounting people at my school are VERY efficient. They know where every single won goes.

They have to keep all records of everything because the school gets audited on a regular basis.

The principal may be able to shift funds to line his own pockets, but I doubt the teachers at the school are able to do that. They get paid what they get paid. The schools don't give teachers cars, or drivers, or paid overseas trips, etc....

I think what usually happens is that teachers will open another business under their spouses name and make extra money that way. I think there is some rule against teachers and working 2nd jobs.

[lucas_p]

[Unposter]

My family member has been working as a high school teacher for 14 years and she makes 45 mill a year, full vacations.

[agoodmouse]

There we have it, verification that my colleague isn't dissembling, despite people who would believe nearly all Koreans -- even those whom you befriend and know -- are somehow born with the social-gaming and -engineering genes.

[CeleryMan]

Which is why Crime pays in Korea ...