Korean Job Discussion Forums

[abedefduf]

havent been here in a while, just noticed the thread about thousands of philippinos supposedly coming over. will this affect the salaries of north americans going over?

[ttompatz]

[SirFink]

The whole influx of Filipinos is turning into an urban myth. Fact is, schools here are more desperate than ever. If you can actually properly spell "Filipino" than you're already over-qualified to teach English in Korea.

[bassexpander]

I wouldn't expect any filipino problems to cause salary issues for a good year or two at least -- even if they were coming over in the next few months.

We'll hope nothing comes of it as far as lowering our salaries.

[beast]

If they are hot they will affect the job market. If you are ugly, you have to worry.

[KoreanAmbition]

Having a "white face" still makes a difference here.

It won't change for a long time.

[i4NI]

[SirFink]

[i4NI]

They're offering crappy jobs and not realizing it's crappy? Shouldn't the lack of offers tell them something?

[losing_touch]

Well, my salary is 2.3 million. I start on Sept. 1.

[Fredbob]

Anyone looking to come here really needs to do their research. The only people making less that 2.2 plus housing here are Koreans, clueless Kyopos and trusting westerners. The ads, IMHO, are just so all the different hagwons can claim they are not outbidding each other. If you are reasonably normal looking and have standard qualifications you should have no trouble finding a job that makes 2.5 without haggling too hard.

Do the math, at 2-2.5, you are generally making between 19,000 and 22,000 an hour, 75% of that is usually actual teaching. If a kid's parents pay 100,000 a month to send there kid for 20 hours a month, they'd only be paying 5,000 an hour or so, multiply that by a class size of 10 and the hagwon is getting 50,000 an hour, can you think of anywhere where that is a bad profit margin? Oh,, reality check, most part time jobs offer 35,000/hr (the crpa ones that is), privates run from 40,000-100,000 and the only hagwons that only charge a kid 100,000 an hour don't have foreign teachers. Even the worst hagwons charge more than 200,000 a month per kid.

My first hagwon charged about 1,000,000 a month per student, 120 hours of classes a month, 10 students per class. that's roughly 83,333 an hour paid in tuition, the teachers, even with housing and all the other expenses figured it, might have made 25,000 an hour.

Why do they get away with this? Mostly ignorance on the part of teachers and collusion by the hagwon associations, however, another factor, most first timers here come with the perception that 50,000 per hour is a ridiculous amount of money for teaching english. I agree, many times it is, but, as many people here will attest to, you aren't getting paid as much to teach as you are to make the hagwon money. There is always room to negotiate BEFORE you get there and BEFORE you sign the contract, which is why the best advice I ever read was, come here on a tourist visa first, then check out some schools, even good ones are always hiring last minute and if you are actually in the country already, you can get premium dollars.

peace, sorry bout the long post

[KoreanAmbition]

Fredbob,

I agree with what you said.

Lesson for teachers: Save 50,000,000 won and then start your own Hagwon.

[Fresh Prince]

I've never met anyone in person that works 8 hours at a hokwon.