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Malislamusrex
Joined: 01 Feb 2010
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 Posted: Tue Dec 27, 2011 7:58 pm Post subject: |
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Who is going to come here with higher qualifications for less pay..... they aren't facts that is just common sense.
| TheUrbanMyth wrote: |
| Malislamusrex wrote: |
If it wasn't obvious before it is obvious now...... GEPIK don't want teachers with any experience at their schools. A certified teacher could get better pay at a hakwon for 5 hours and don't have to deal with co-teachers.
The reason GEPIK don't want teachers because they can throw the 'teachers' with no experience under the bus if they ever get questioned on educational procedures.... POLITICS FIGHTING!!!!!! |
Must be why they are INCREASING requirements then... 
Ever think of checking FACTS before you post...just a hint. |
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Malislamusrex
Joined: 01 Feb 2010
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| Posted: Tue Dec 27, 2011 8:05 pm Post subject: |
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It is getting to the stage where the pay is so low people won't come to Korea. the PS gig was a good deal but now it isn't, but people with qualifications definitely won't come to Korea. Which brings me back to my first point. GEPIK don't want teachers, they want anyone who will take the job and when things go bad they will throw them under the bus.
I agree that there needs to be an adjustment every now and again, but the adjustment here is to make Korea less attractive to people with a teaching certificate.
This is down to politics.
| ttompatz wrote: |
The difference is not just the budget slashing but the exceptional increase in the number and quality of desperate people willing to get on a plane since there are no jobs for teachers at home, plane tickets are paid for and startup costs are minimal.
Will it have the opposite effect in time = yes.
In the short run = no (too many desperate Americans).
Will they have to adjust things over time as the number of Americans decrease = yes
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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| Posted: Tue Dec 27, 2011 8:08 pm Post subject: |
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| Malislamusrex wrote: |
Who is going to come here with higher qualifications for less pay..... they aren't facts that is just common sense.
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The difference is not just the budget slashing but the exceptional increase in the number and quality of desperate people willing to get on a plane since there are no jobs for teachers at home, plane tickets are paid for and startup costs are minimal.
Will it have the opposite effect in time = yes.
In the short run = no (too many desperate Americans). |
As said by another poster above, now they can pick and choose. Newbies aren't going to know it's less pay...and they make up the bulk of the people here
They're doing this because they can...times are getting harder and harder back home.
And salaries have remained stagnant over the last five years...so with the exception of a few fortunate people, EVERYONE is taking less pay due to inflation and rising prices.
Granted they may reach a tipping point a la '97...but as long as economies remain depressed back home, that day of reckoning is still some distance off. |
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Weigookin74
Joined: 26 Oct 2009
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| Posted: Tue Dec 27, 2011 8:23 pm Post subject: |
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| When this recession ends, won't the powers that be have a shock of a lifetime? |
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ttompatz
Joined: 05 Sep 2005
Location: Kwangju, South Korea
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| Posted: Tue Dec 27, 2011 8:38 pm Post subject: |
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| Weigookin74 wrote: |
| When this recession ends, won't the powers that be have a shock of a lifetime? |
Not unless they manage to stay elected. Their memories and planning are just about as short - 4-5 years on average.
Under the current set of circumstances they can and are offering less and asking more and they know they can get away with it in spite of the problems that are endemic in EFL in Korea.
If circumstances change again then they will adapt(as they did in 1998 when their own economy was in ruin, again in 2001/2 just before the world cup and again after the economic crash of 2008 in the states.
The industry is not static and as said before, by its very nature, is transient.
People who are here now, with few exceptions, weren't here in 2002 (or earlier).
People who are coming here now are not the back-packers of 1996.
Will they stay = no. Most of them will be gone as soon as jobs begin to open up at home again (1-5 years depending on where home is).
Is that any different than EFL/ESL was before = no. People come and go all the time. Even in GEPIK, until the US economic crash, the turnover rate was more than 60% per year and almost 97% after 2 years.
With the average "job life expectancy" and collective memory of just 2 years they have no worry.
If places like Wonderland can stay in business for decades even after books have been written about them ( Prisoner of Wonderland: An ESL Misadventure http://www.amazon.com/Prisoner-Wonderland-Misadventure-Jane-Keeler/dp/1411618017 ) because the collective memory is only 2 years then EPIK and GEPIK have nothing to worry about.
We won't even have to delve into the sordid things that EPIK used to do to cheat teachers on a regular basis. They have long since been forgotten as well.
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World Traveler
Joined: 29 May 2009
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| Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2011 6:10 am Post subject: |
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| thebektionary wrote: |
| No, my pay scale in GEPIK now is 2.1, not 2.0. |
Actually, no. It is 2.0 now. Before the announcement on December 27th, your TEFL certificate would have gotten you 2.1. Things have changed.  |
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NYC_Gal 2.0
Joined: 10 Dec 2010
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| Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2011 6:29 am Post subject: |
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| TheUrbanMyth wrote: |
| World Traveler wrote: |
| thebektionary wrote: |
| So if I taught at a hagwon again I could potentially make 2.3. |
I'd say you are taking a pay cut to work with GEPIK then. Because with your TEFL certification you will now be starting at 2.0 million a month, meaning you will make 3.9 million less per year at GEPIK than at a hagwon. But if 3,900,000 won is an insignificant amount of money for you, and if you are convinced GEPIK is the better job, go for it. |
Most hakwons pay 2.1 or 2.2 . Few pay 2.3+. That is definitely not the norm. |
Most hagwon ads say that, but if you get a job through networking, you'll rarely find a job that pays under 2.3. |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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| Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2011 4:34 pm Post subject: |
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| NYC_Gal 2.0 wrote: |
| TheUrbanMyth wrote: |
| World Traveler wrote: |
| thebektionary wrote: |
| So if I taught at a hagwon again I could potentially make 2.3. |
I'd say you are taking a pay cut to work with GEPIK then. Because with your TEFL certification you will now be starting at 2.0 million a month, meaning you will make 3.9 million less per year at GEPIK than at a hagwon. But if 3,900,000 won is an insignificant amount of money for you, and if you are convinced GEPIK is the better job, go for it. |
Most hakwons pay 2.1 or 2.2 . Few pay 2.3+. That is definitely not the norm. |
Most hagwon ads say that, but if you get a job through networking, you'll rarely find a job that pays under 2.3. |
Networking is the key word here. Most people who come here are newbies and don't have a network to rely on. And hakwons are catching on to the fact that there are more teachers than ever before willing to work for lower wages. Give it a couple more years and you will find those 2.3 jobs scarce on the ground as the influx of former public school teachers joins the hakwon brigade. |
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ttompatz
Joined: 05 Sep 2005
Location: Kwangju, South Korea
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| Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2011 5:32 pm Post subject: |
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| TheUrbanMyth wrote: |
| Give it a couple more years and you will find those 2.3 jobs scarce on the ground as the influx of former public school teachers joins the hakwon brigade. |
Actually, I doubt this for a couple of reasons.
1) The transient nature of the industry. People usually DON'T stay in ESL for a long time so the current glut of teachers will be gone in 2 years.
Most of the 1700 who are not getting renewed this year will be gone by August.
2) As the economies back home improve over time the numbers of desperate refugees coming out of the States will be reduced again reducing the supply.
As the supply of desperate newbies drops the wages will quit falling.
The wages will need to be:
i) competitive enough to attract people (newbies) and
ii) high enough to make people forget about the crap that they have to put up with in Korea (there is a reason why they pay close to $2000 + housing and an airplane ticket and Thailand has an excess of newbie applicants with 1/2 the salary, no housing, no airfare and no benefits) but
iii) they also need to be low enough for hagwans to stay in business and make money. There is a ceiling on wages because there is a ceiling on what most hagwans can charge their clients.
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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| Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2011 5:55 pm Post subject: |
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| ttompatz wrote: |
| TheUrbanMyth wrote: |
| Give it a couple more years and you will find those 2.3 jobs scarce on the ground as the influx of former public school teachers joins the hakwon brigade. |
Actually, I doubt this for a couple of reasons.
1) The transient nature of the industry. People usually DON'T stay in ESL for a long time so the current glut of teachers will be gone in 2 years.
Most of the 1700 who are not getting renewed this year will be gone by August.
2) As the economies back home improve over time the numbers of desperate refugees coming out of the States will be reduced again reducing the supply.
As the supply of desperate newbies drops the wages will quit falling.
The wages will need to be:
i) competitive enough to attract people (newbies) and
ii) high enough to make people forget about the crap that they have to put up with in Korea (there is a reason why they pay close to $2000 + housing and an airplane ticket and Thailand has an excess of newbie applicants with 1/2 the salary, no housing, no airfare and no benefits) but
iii) they also need to be low enough for hagwans to stay in business and make money. There is a ceiling on wages because there is a ceiling on what most hagwans can charge their clients.
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Well reason number 1 is arguable so okay fair enough
But reason number 2? The economies back home (specifically Canada, American and England) are not going to improve significantly in the next couple of years...if not longer.
And there is always a catch-up phase meaning it took time for wages to fall and it will take time for wages to rise (even with reduced demand). There's been an influx of newbies since 2009-10 and wages are only starting to fall now...we'll see them slump further yet before they turn around. |
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Airborne9
Joined: 01 Jun 2010
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| Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2011 6:10 pm Post subject: |
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It seems to me that a few people I know and some people on this forum have said that their school has been given funding for a NET from GEPIK for another year, even though they were told earlier that they wouldn�t get it. Is this just some lucky people or is GEPIK not cutting as many teachers as they said they would, or are the bulk of the cuts already taken place?
Any one have any opinions? |
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sojusucks
Joined: 31 May 2008
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| Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2011 7:48 pm Post subject: |
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| Airborne9 wrote: |
It seems to me that a few people I know and some people on this forum have said that their school has been given funding for a NET from GEPIK for another year, even though they were told earlier that they wouldn�t get it. Is this just some lucky people or is GEPIK not cutting as many teachers as they said they would, or are the bulk of the cuts already taken place?
Any one have any opinions? |
Many don't understand the bigger picture. As for getting the truth from GEPIK itself, well, good luck with that one. |
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12ax7
Joined: 07 Nov 2009
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| Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2011 9:08 pm Post subject: |
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| TheUrbanMyth wrote: |
| Malislamusrex wrote: |
Who is going to come here with higher qualifications for less pay..... they aren't facts that is just common sense.
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| Quote: |
The difference is not just the budget slashing but the exceptional increase in the number and quality of desperate people willing to get on a plane since there are no jobs for teachers at home, plane tickets are paid for and startup costs are minimal.
Will it have the opposite effect in time = yes.
In the short run = no (too many desperate Americans). |
As said by another poster above, now they can pick and choose. Newbies aren't going to know it's less pay...and they make up the bulk of the people here
They're doing this because they can...times are getting harder and harder back home.
And salaries have remained stagnant over the last five years...so with the exception of a few fortunate people, EVERYONE is taking less pay due to inflation and rising prices.
Granted they may reach a tipping point a la '97...but as long as economies remain depressed back home, that day of reckoning is still some distance off. |
97'-98', those were the good old days. The average hagwon salary was 1.1 million won and the won was trading at 1900won/US dollar. People left in droves, but I stayed. I knew doors would begin to open once the economy had picked up. |
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12ax7
Joined: 07 Nov 2009
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| Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2011 9:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Airborne9 wrote: |
It seems to me that a few people I know and some people on this forum have said that their school has been given funding for a NET from GEPIK for another year, even though they were told earlier that they wouldn�t get it. Is this just some lucky people or is GEPIK not cutting as many teachers as they said they would, or are the bulk of the cuts already taken place?
Any one have any opinions? |
I think it's quite simple. The elections are coming, so the government wants to appear as if its balancing the budget. They announce cuts, people complain, and then they never go through with them. It happens all the time here.
When Lee Myung Bak was first elected, he wanted all schools to offer English immersion courses exclusively in the name of globalization. He also wanted to build a canal through the country. He gave up on those plans when he realized that few people approved. |
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Who's Your Daddy?
Joined: 30 May 2010
Location: Victoria, Canada.
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| Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2011 11:34 pm Post subject: |
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| 12ax7 wrote: |
When Lee Myung Bak was first elected, he... wanted to build a canal through the country. He gave up on those plans when he realized that few people approved. |
The Four Rivers Project was completed this October. |
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