Korean Job Discussion Forums

[No_hite_pls]

"The won falls to it's lowest value in two years."

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e2100c94-ef8f-11dc-8a17-0000779fd2ac.html

The new E2 regs. don't bother me, but this does.

[Sody]

I couldn't agree more. It's gotten to the point where living in Korea simply isn't worth it anymore. The prices of items in Seoul are ridiculous and I can only imagine the Won leveling off at best. Compared to the Canadian dollar, the Won has been decreasing in value - steadily - for more than one year.

I wish there were good hagwons to work for, but they are extremely rare to find. I know six teachers who make more than 3.5 mil/month but two of them have F2s, they all speak Korean, live in Seoul and have lots of experience.

Public school jobs in Korea have not adjusted their salaries to accomodate the changes in the market economy. Right now I can't recommend any public school job that pays less than 2.5 mil/month for 22 hrs. of teaching per week. It's simply not worth it.

[suwon_swinger]

so if we have a bit of won saved up what should we do? Hold? Take the hit now before it gets worse? Trade to another currency?

[jamiekarin]

Yeah for real when I arrived here my 2.1 million won salary was like $2300 Candian, now it is like $2000. I am leaving in two months what is the best approach to getting my money back to Canada with losing as little of it as possible. I'll be leaving with around 10 million won.

[OneWayTraffic]

[robot]

That's true, OneWayTraffic..

But man, has it ever gone down! With today's exchange, my hourly is 20% lower than when I started 2 years ago.

I guess I can only hold on for the ride...

[Dukey77777]

I figured with businessman extraordinaire Lee Myeong Bak, the won would go the other way....isn't he supposed to be reviving the economy? I realize the US is dragging other countries down right now, especially in the stock markets, but I don't understand why Korea is losing it so much faster....I expected it to be lower than 900 at this point. Does anyone see it going back to where it was last November? I think it could possibly be cyclical in nature...it seems like last March it was at this level (960s), and then it started going down to the 920-930 levels until September.

Maybe these economic changes he's proposing will take a bit of time to take effect...but it does seem like he's doing some good by making the government more efficient, for a start.

[hagwonnewbie]

It's at 980. The only thing that can save us is government intervention. My guess is the ride will be for several years. Wait a week or two, then start sending some home based on the new forecast. This currency is held too tightly to the US economy which is extremely unhealthy.

[4 months left]

The Korean Gov't won't step in. It was not long ago they were complaining about the strong won. A weak currency is good for an export based economy like Korea. I would think it might stabalize around here. Reasons for the weakness could include Korea's dependence on imported oil and commodities. Some good news out to the North might boost the Won. Another reason may be because they hold a lot of the decling US dollar reserves.

[suwon_swinger]

so pretty much sounds like we'll all be biting the bullet here then? What about investing in then? I've got a good amount of won saved and no need for it at the moment so if I'm not getting extra money through exchange I might as well invest it....any tips?

[hogwonguy1979]

everybody else is making more dollars except us in korea

go figure...these people still dont know how to run an economy and havent learned the lessons of 97 as we've seen with the banking policies

[Justin Hale]

I'm sickened by this. It's my last year here and I'm gonna take home an absolute crapload of KRW and guess what! The KRW is a worthless piece of shit! How in the Christ can a currency lose value against the USD of all things? Pathetic and sickening. The KRW has plunged, absolutely plummetted and we're all getting *beep* in the ass.

[cdninkorea]

What about buying US dollars? The US economy will rebound, and the time to buy would be now, when it's weak.

This is not advice; I'm not qualified to give any. Actually I'm seeking advice on this idea of mine from anyone who might be qualified to do so.

[spliff]

^You're kidding, right?

[Kenny Kimchee]

Go to your bank and open up an MMF (money market fund). Hana currently offers 5%.

Alternately, you could do like I did: put a whole bunch of money into China, BRIC, and KOSPI funds - then watch it drop 30% in 2 months. Yeah, baby!