Korean Job Discussion Forums

jesse livermore · Joined: 24 Jun 2003 Location: 2nd floor

I got a pretty good offer, considering I'm a newbie and all, no (teaching) experience. The only thing is the 10 days vacation includes weekends. 5 days in summer (wed through sunday) and five days in winter (wed through sunday) Is this common (for inexperienced at least) or should I ask for more vacation time, or at least for the vacations not to include weekends, or should I just figure this is par and take it.

Thanks for your help

Jesse

ghostshadow · Joined: 27 Apr 2004 Location: Seoul

I would think that they could put the Saturday in if you are scheduled to work on Saturdays but the Sunday should not be in there. If you work on Saturday I would understand but Sunday should not be part of the vacation day.

waterbaby · Joined: 01 Feb 2003 Location: Baking Gord a Cheescake pie

Hmmm... Saturday is actually considered a regular workday in Korea so they could argue for it in your contract... but Sunday should definitely not be included.

The thing is, most contracts these days offer at least 10 paid days vacation and this means two weeks off including mon-fri plus weekends. Hagwons usually stagger these holidays and often tell you that you can have one week of in summer and another in winter. If your work schedule is monday to friday, they are trying to rip a few days off you and believe me, you'll need that longer break!

Try negotiating for more time off - they can only say no. I did that last year with my job - they were only offering 6 days vacation and I asked for 10 and got it without hesitation becdause that's what other jobs were offering at the time.

Good luck!