Korean Job Discussion Forums

[wanderingsalsero]

Now that the exchange rate has gotten so negative and that teachers are no longer able to save or send as much money back to the US/Canda/UK as before, is that likely to effect how many teachers will be looking for alternate sources of income while they're here?

And.......are there any signs that the public schools are going to be raising their pay scales any in order to continue to attract teachers? I'd heard that hagwons were starting to offer more and I noticed an ad on Serious Teachers yesterday that was higher than usual.....but I haven't had time to notice a general trend.

Reason I ask is I'm wondering if I should start spending more time on some of the internet things I do to make money or if there's a possibility that our local situation might get better.

Just wondering.

Regards,
Art

[cruisemonkey]

If a reduced supply of teachers due to unfavourabe exchange rates does drive salaries up (and that's debatable), public schools will be much slower to respond due to bureaucratic inertia - probably lagging six months to a year behind hogwans.

[Juregen]

A lot of people believe that the current exchange rate is temporal.

Why increase wages under such believes?

There are other variables to take into account the wages paid that have stronger influence than exchange rates.

[sojourner1]

I would say no to both your questions with the exception that some teachers will do privates for extra income regardless of the xchange rates. Pay will eventually go up a little as it would had regardless of exchange rates and market forces.

Teacher pay does not go real high anywhere in the world just because there's a shortage like it might for other careers in demand. Now if you have a shortage of specialized doctors, which America claims to, then pay is even much higher than it would be with a supply of candidates, often into the 6 figures and pay never has anything to do with the value of the dollar. America is severly short on teachers, except in some suburban schools, but pay is even lower than in Korea in many parts of the country while New York City is paying like $44,000 a year, but I'm sure it's quite a difficult job. St. Louis pays $34,000 a year which would be an awfully hard place to teach and small towns are paying in the low to mid 20's despite the shortage. Not that this thread is about teaching in America, it demonstrates that pay doesn't rise anywhere in the teaching world much due to external market forces because teaching is considered a nonprofit profession or the opposite of sales/marketing executive.

Teaching is a modest profession and is for people who prefer not to work in business related careers and compete in free markets, except old university professors are often high paid professionals in the fields they teach. It's a pre-retirement job for them while they wait for their portfolio to build up some more.

[itaewonguy]

ride out the storm!
all will be fine in a couple months...

for all of those who dont send money home, its not a problem is it..

[mnhnhyouh]

Australian schools pay AUD$42,000 (USD$27,000) for first year teachers, going up to AUD$63,000 (USD$40,700) for those with 10 years experience.

The Australian dollar has fallen lots of late, though sadly, not as much as the Korean won, so those USD$ numbers were much better until recently.

h