Korean Job Discussion Forums

[cubanlord]

Every morning, I wake up and read the New York Times, CNN, and the Korea Times. This morning, I read an interesting article on the Korea Times entitled 'Don�t� Accept Glass Ceiling in Business'. Here it is:

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2010/04/113_64357.html

I couldn't help but to think of foreigners' current situation in Korea and how most people working here do have a glass ceiling, well, more like a concrete ceiling reinforced with rybar. Are you comfortable knowing that the income you make now or the income you make in the next 3 to 5 years will be the higest available income for you? What about your position? I'm referring to E2s here and not the F-class people, although many of them do fall in the same category. I'm curious about what people think?

[wjf1]

I personally don't have a problem as I only intend to stay in Korea for two years at the most. I like the idea that I can start on good money straight away.

[Kurtz]

The glass ceiling with the EPIK program is 2.5 million if you want to live in a big city.

Personally I'm fine with that as I have managed to legally pump up my current base salary of 2.3 by a considerable amount within 3 years of doing this kind of work.

If I was to make this a career, I would upgrade my teaching qualifications for sure and move to greener pastures though as not being able to get higher than 2.5 million a month as a base salary with considerable experience and qualifications would be very frustrating.

[Goon-Yang]

Women are not at a disadvantage here in Korea...is that chick from Korea?

Sure...not going out with the guys isn't going to affect your promotion...sure...whatever.

[thegadfly]

Most jobs have a point at which the salary tops out -- usually, to exceed that cap, one must get promoted or take on additional duties/responsibilities. Jimmy in the mail room of a company gets a desk job -- his mail delivering duties do not give him unlimited salary advancement. Most jobs are similar, and teaching is not really so different, here or in my home country. The fact that one hits the salary cap so early does not mean that advancement is not possible -- you just need to get out of the mailroom.

[madoka]

The glass ceiling you are referring to is more related to the job and not as much as to whether one is foreign. Even Korean teachers can only make so much as teachers as a profession only make so much. However, there have been plenty of people on Dave's who managed to leverage their teaching jobs into something more lucrative. It's more up to the individual involved. Unfortunately, a powerful lure for a lot of E-2s (though not all) is that it's an easy, undemanding job, so you often don't get the most ambitious people teaching in Korea.

[dirving]

[Senior]

No, because it's not true. There are plenty of legal ways to supplement your income.

If the salary tops out at your PS, there is nothing stopping you finding a higher paying job.

A "glass ceiling" only exists if you let it exist.

[Kurtz]

[Senior]

[fustiancorduroy]

A teacher's salary in Korea is adequate for most single people. You can live a comfortable, but not exactly pampered, life here by earning 2.5 to 3 million won a month or so. But if you want to raise a family, you'd need to earn more if you want to be able to save anything.

It's true there are teaching jobs here that pay more money, namely TOEFL/SAT/AP-prep. Most of these jobs pay at least 3 million won a month, and some of them pay, 5, 7, or 10 million won a month, and a few pay even more than this. But these jobs are stressful, requiring you to work many, many hours per week -- often 50 hours or more -- and you usually have to come in on Saturdays, too. That's assuming you even get one of these jobs in the first place, as you need to be able to ace the tests you would teach while being charming and interesting as a teacher. Oh, and being bilingual and/or married to a Korean usually necessary, as well.

So as far as teaching jobs go, you can be a "regular" ESL teacher and make a meager salary or work like crazy at a test-prep academy. Either way, your quality of life will probably never be that great. To get any other kind of job, ones with prestige, opportunities for advancement, and great fringe benefits, you need to have special skills or credentials, such as an advanced degree, years of work experience, and/or Korean skills. If you don't possess any of those things, well, you'd better look elsewhere to advance your career or be happy living in your one-room apartment.

[air76]

Personally I am comfortable with the situation because I am leaving at the end of this contract and never had any intention of staying in Korea longer than a few years....however, if I were planning on staying in Korea for the long haul what would bother me is the difficulty in gaining some kind of permanent residency, something that would allow me to change jobs freely and be able to stay in the country between jobs, and so on.

I don't think that the term glass-ceiling really applies to teaching because by nature it's a field that has a cap on how much money you can make....clearly you can move up to better jobs or do extra work on the side, and so on, but that's not what I am referring to. I just mean that if you work for a particular school then there will always be a limit to how much money you can make as a teacher. It's not as though there are upper management positions available making much greater salaries that are not available to foreigners.

All up there are some pretty good paying teaching jobs here...if you're in this for the long haul you can get your MA and slowly move up from university to better university and end up with a pretty high paying job (relative to teaching jobs both here and elsewhere)....however, if you live here for 10 years and never advance out of the public school system, then that's really your own fault, and not due to any sort of glass ceiling that wasn't installed by your own self.

[VanIslander]

[schwa]

[hubbahubba]

You're a fool if you don't think there's a glass veiling here (my view). We're always just one step away from "new management" sweeping the floor with their new "brilliant: ideas of ESL education. Plan for it, or be young and don't give a shit...lol. Seriously, unless you're set in life as far as cash and all that i would NOT recommend Korea for LONG term stability, they're too flakey, and we have no rights...we're Mexicans...get used to it..lol