Korean Job Discussion Forums

[pest2]

I have a friend who says her Hakwon told her that they dont need to deduct from her pay and thier assets because it is a small school with only 4 teachers. Could that be true? I used to have the email addy to the pension office to give her but now I lost it.

[pest2]

I mean the school told her that she and they dont have to contribute to her pension fund and therefore there wont be any pension fund for her at the end of the year.

[tzechuk]

It used to be that if a company has fewer than 5 employees, they didn't need to contribute towards the pension fund. But according to my husband, that has changed and now regardless of the number of employees you have, everyone has to contribute towards the pension scheme.

[Captain Corea]

[ontheway]

There is a form which you can file with the National Pension Scheme that allows you to declare yourself "exempt" from the program. I'm sitting here looking at it as I type this. If you have a good employer you can get more pay, in cash - no paying in, no deductions, no filing for a refund when you leave Korea.

You have to qualify, under one of several categories, but they look pretty broad, so many teachers should qualify.

category 1: Aged less that 18 or 60 or more
.
.
category 10: Other reasons besides the above (I like this one)

[pest2]

Well, the thing is that I paid in like 80,000 each month when I did it. So I put in almost 1 million over the course of the year. But I got back more than 2X that (about 2.6 million). If your employer doesnt deduct for the pension program, you could be losing some cash when you leave Korea.

[tzechuk]