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tfunk
Joined: 12 Aug 2006
Location: Dublin, Ireland
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 Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 3:12 am Post subject: What constitutes a 'small city' according to EPIK? |
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The EPIK system has various levels of pay and one of the criteria for receiving a higher wage is whether you live in a province or a small city. So, is there a legal/working definition of what a small city is?
Presumably it must go according to population. Is there any handy way of telling whether or not your school is in a small city? |
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Draz
Joined: 27 Jun 2007
Location: Land of Morning Clam
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sojourner1
Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Location: Where meggi swim and 2 wheeled tractors go sput put chug alugg pug pug
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| Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 3:35 am Post subject: Re: What constitutes a 'small city' according to EPIK? |
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| tfunk wrote: |
The EPIK system has various levels of pay and one of the criteria for receiving a higher wage is whether you live in a province or a small city. So, is there a legal/working definition of what a small city is?
Presumably it must go according to population. Is there any handy way of telling whether or not your school is in a small city? |
Good question. I've never seen anything documenting what qualifies population wise, but I know it's at the discretion of your POE EPIK coordinator. Your recruiter can help negotiate this extra 100,000 won per month if you are being placed in a smaller city or town and should be able to tell you if you will be getting it. For example, in Gangwondo, almost every place, except Wonju and Chuncheon would have the rural allowance as well as the multi-school allowance. This would mean you get paid 2.2 million a month as a level 2 teacher with a bachelors degree and at least 1 year English teaching experience in Korea. Add on the additional 200,000 won travel allowance per month and it's 2.4 for traveling to other schools at least 10 times per month. If not 10X per month, then it's 20,000 won per day you travel away from your main school. This sufficiently covers you as bus fare may be 4,500 won round trip, but look at is as extra pay for getting up earlier to commute to other towns. Usually, it means 1 extra hour earlier you have to get up.
It is stated, if not placed in one of the (I think it was 9) major metropolitan areas, then you get the rural allowance. |
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Draz
Joined: 27 Jun 2007
Location: Land of Morning Clam
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| Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 3:58 am Post subject: Re: What constitutes a 'small city' according to EPIK? |
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| sojourner1 wrote: |
| tfunk wrote: |
The EPIK system has various levels of pay and one of the criteria for receiving a higher wage is whether you live in a province or a small city. So, is there a legal/working definition of what a small city is?
Presumably it must go according to population. Is there any handy way of telling whether or not your school is in a small city? |
Good question. I've never seen anything documenting what qualifies population wise, but I know it's at the discretion of your POE EPIK coordinator. |
You know, I can't remember where I read that myeon/eup thing. I must have gotten it from somewhere.
That bonus (100,000) is on top of the allowance you get for being in a province and not in a metropolitan city. |
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jvalmer
Joined: 06 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 4:02 am Post subject: |
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| Depends if you're placed in a county (gun) or a city (shi). I think EPIK will give you an extra 100k for not being in one of the metro-cities. Depending on province, you may get an extra 100k for being in a county (gun). So, potentially you'll get an extra 200k on top of your base, then minus 5-10% for taxes for your total pay. |
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tfunk
Joined: 12 Aug 2006
Location: Dublin, Ireland
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| Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 4:13 am Post subject: |
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| Draz wrote: |
| Depends on the province, probably. In mine, if you are in a "myeon" or "eup", you get it. |
Hmmm. Why is there an extra allowance for a small city? Is it equivalent to a rural allowance in that you're paying somebody extra to live in a place without modern conveniences? That would explain why a 'myeon' or 'eup' gets it and not a 'si'. It seems odd that the most ruralized administrative district is referred to as a city if this is the case. I'll just have to get over it!
I thought 'small city' had the opposite connotations: you're living in a part of the countryside with EXTRA conveniences, the cost of living is higher and so you need a higher salary.
So, the extra pay for living in a 'small city' is for what benefit? Rural allowance?
Last edited by tfunk on Fri Jul 18, 2008 4:15 am; edited 1 time in total |
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captain kirk
Joined: 29 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 4:14 am Post subject: |
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| My school is in a city of 50,000 people and it's still an 'eup' and qualifies for the rural/isolation/you could go starkers allowance. |
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tfunk
Joined: 12 Aug 2006
Location: Dublin, Ireland
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| Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 4:16 am Post subject: |
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| captain kirk wrote: |
| My school is in a city of 50,000 people and it's still an 'eup' and qualifies for the rural/isolation/you could go starkers allowance. |
So I guess 'small city' is the term to describe the most isolated area you can live in. Kind of odd, for me. |
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sojourner1
Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Location: Where meggi swim and 2 wheeled tractors go sput put chug alugg pug pug
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| Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 4:24 am Post subject: |
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| tfunk wrote: |
| Draz wrote: |
| Depends on the province, probably. In mine, if you are in a "myeon" or "eup", you get it. |
Hmmm. Why is there an extra allowance for a small city? Is it equivalent to a rural allowance in that you're paying somebody extra to live in a place without modern conveniences? That would explain why a 'myeon' or 'eup' gets it and not a 'si'.
I thought 'small city' had the opposite connotations: you're living in a part of the countryside with EXTRA conveniences, the cost of living is higher and so you need a higher salary.
So, the extra pay for living in a 'small city' is for what benefit? |
To help pay the larger utility cost of having a larger apartment and the fact you will have to use gas to cook anything you enjoy eating such as a hamburger and fries since there's no restaurants catering to your western tastes. It's more likely you'll get a place with 6 sets of electricy sucking ondul and a 200 gallon hot water heater dedicated to your family sized unit. In small towns, it's either tiny shithole crappy living dirt poor apartments with no gas for cooking nor washer hookup or you get a large family sized apartment with all the amenities where you can live high on the hog.(food is tough to come across as shopping almost doesn't exist so you have to dedicate weekends to long all day bus shopping trips to an Emart or Homeplus) I took the large family apartment as it's nice, big, and quite adequate for living. I'm not keeping that huge water heater hot in the Summer as cold showers are fine like when in a Thai bungalow. |
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jvalmer
Joined: 06 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 4:26 am Post subject: |
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| Alot of these places got their city or county status 20 or 30 years ago. Most places that were labelled cities haven't lost their status, even if their populations have dropped. |
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tfunk
Joined: 12 Aug 2006
Location: Dublin, Ireland
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| Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 4:53 am Post subject: |
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| sojourner1 wrote: |
To help pay the larger utility cost of having a larger apartment and the fact you will have to use gas to cook anything you enjoy eating such as a hamburger and fries since there's no restaurants catering to your western tastes. |
So, if the categorization of a 'small city' is used as a basis to give a greater salary because there are extra costs of living, then 'Si' should also get this 'small city' bonus.
It's funny to think you'd get a small city bonus in somewhere like Sokcho-si. Then again, I'm probably equating modern conveniences with western conveniences...if it doesn't have a McDonalds, it ain't modern!
Is it possible to get both a rural allowance and a small city allowance? How much is the rural allowance? A bonus for living with conveniences and a bonus for not living with conveniences...hmmm.
Last edited by tfunk on Fri Jul 18, 2008 5:22 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Dome Vans
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| Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 5:07 am Post subject: |
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I live in a 'gun'. Most of my friends have schools in the 'gun'. This is a city with about 40 000 people. All my friends get the rural bonus of 100 000 won.
All my schools are in 'myeon' which is probably about 500-1000 people and I get the rural 100 000 won as well.
EPIK now has scrapped the extra 200 000 won bonus, now it's broken down into 100 000 won rural bonus and 50 000 for each school that you work at on top of your basic salary.
I know of a few posters on here who work in different provinces who are in similar sized cities and they don't get the rural bonus. So it really does come down to the province. If a city wants to attract teachers they'd be wise to add the bonus on.
EPIK contracts are different for each province, so it stands to reason the dishing out of this bonus is gonna be different for each even setting the boundaries of what is considered the 'sticks'. |
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Draz
Joined: 27 Jun 2007
Location: Land of Morning Clam
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| Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 2:05 pm Post subject: |
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| Dome Vans wrote: |
EPIK now has scrapped the extra 200 000 won bonus, now it's broken down into 100 000 won rural bonus and 50 000 for each school that you work at on top of your basic salary. |
They tried to change my contract to this AFTER everybody had already signed it. Yeah, no thanks.
I hate working in an eup. If I got to pick where I worked, you'd have to pay me a heck of a lot more than 100,000/month to pick an eup. (Or provide bonuses like extra holidays and a light workload.)
Si isn't really a small city. It's a district, it's like an hour to drive from one end to the other. A si will have a bigger city with the same name inside it, but just because you're living in the si doesn't mean you are living in that city (or anywhere near that city). |
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