Korean Job Discussion Forums

[gmlkoreanna]

I've been out of the swing of things for awhile.

The other day, I get an email with a job offer, rates starting at 35.000KRW per hour! Yikes!! Back in the day, 1996. I was getting that much down in Dae Jeon (Hanam Univ). So stunned and curious me, looks up some of these job sites and me see's, that rates have gone as low as, 25-30KRW per hour. Are the recruiters taking a bigger chunk, or does this have something to do with LMB education reform? There was a time, not too long ago, when you could see rates from 50-70KRW hourly. What happened?? Me think's, those of us that have the privilege of holding "the higher "visa status" start being a little more picky, eh??? We're letting the recruiters kill the market!

[carleverson]

The rates are going down. Too many westerners here already and more want to come here.

[itaewonguy]

not really... back in the old days the recruiter would only take like 5000 won per hour from the teacher. so if the MUM paid 40K you would get 35 and then recruiter would take 5000 won.. then the recruiters got VERY greedy, they try to get as much as 50 or 60 from the mums.. and give the teacher 35-40 an hour so they can pocket 20K an hour for doing NOTHING... mothers dont want to pay 60bucks an hour.. can you blame them?..so they are looking for foreigners who will work for 40..
but recruiters cant accept 40 from mothers, becuase they know its hard to find teachers who wil take 25K..

You keep hearing on this board how working In Korea is great money..
wouldnt say its great money.. 18bucks an hour for teaching kids is what it adds up to for most teachers here on standard E2's..
guess the low tax and the free house is what keeps people here..

more and more hakwons are opening up and offering cheaper rates, and more class times and better curriculums .. so a lot of mums now are choosing that over privates lessons too..

[brento1138]

I've never seen so many foreigners in Seoul. The numbers must be up considerably... so I suppose the old problem of supply and demand isn't really there anymore...

[MarionG]

OP, please learn the difference between verb forms that end in s, the
possessive ('s) and plurals (s.)

[the ireland]

[nautilus]

[gmlkoreanna]

me thinks, we SHOULD nix the recruiter! Big Comapnies are paying out 90.000KRW per hour and the recruiter is paying the instructor, less than half of that...

[vaticanhotline]

The recruiter isn't paying the instructor-the school or the POE is.

[VanIslander]

I love English language teaching and so if I need to take my show on the road to Vietnam (which pays $2000 U.S. and up these days) or some other country which peaks my interest, then so be it.

The worldwide ESL industry is going strong with or without Korea.

It was sheer chance that I ended up here instead of a couple of other countries I'd shortlisted. Life goes on.

[Captain Corea]

I haven't noticed any hourly change.

[Gibberish]

[Moldy Rutabaga]

I haven't taken notice of these hourly rates, but I do see that the hogwan wage I made in 2003 is the same as jobs advertised in 2010. The wages haven't budged one won but the cost of living certainly has. Relative to inflation wages have thus declined.

With the poor western economy I expect to see lots of competition here for the next few years and stagnant wages to match. What will drip away foreign teachers here are the slowly increasing wages in Thailand and Vietnam. When some tipping point comes where you can make near $2000 a month in Phuket instead of Ulsan a lot of people will be gone. And if China got serious and offered its own EPIK program with good wages, they could hire away every foreign ESL teacher who wanted a job overnight.

When that happens, I expect wages still won't rise. Koreans will hire Filipino, Indian, and European teachers on the cheap and complain about them too.

[brier]

[djsmnc]