Korean Job Discussion Forums

[mikekim]

I just got here and I'm paid 2.5 million won a month + free apartment. . I think I either make way more than they do or a hell of a lot less.

[Wrench]

[Boodleheimer]

[Real Reality]

Teacher: Salaries
South Korea salaries go from $25,000 up to $60,000. Korean teachers are supposed to be the best-paid ones in the world with regard to the real income.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teacher#Salaries

Teachers in Korea have guaranteed tenure until they reach the mandatory retirement age.
Annual teacher salaries, public schools (with minimum training) (US$)
Starting Salary: 25,177
After 15 years: 42,845
Top of Scale: 68,581
Attracting, Developing and Retaining Effective Teachers
Country Note: Korea
John Coolahan, Paulo Santiago, Rowena Phair and Akira Ninomiya
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Directorate for Education, Education and Training Policy Division
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/26/49/31690991.pdf

More Education Means More Pay
The monthly pay of workers with bachelor's degrees averaged at 3 million won during the nine months to September, while that of workers with the same length of service but with only high school diploma stood at 2.06 million won.... Those with a master's degree or doctorate earned 4 million won a month on average.
By Kim Sung-jin, Korea Times (December 12, 2005)
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/200512/kt2005121217335210230.htm

International Comparisons of Teacher Salaries
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind02/c1/c1s7.htm#c1s7l3

[JeJuJitsu]

No idea how much Koreans make, but I'm mystified by the thousands of 700,000,000 Won 2-room apartments going up in my town. Doing the math, you'd have to make significantly more than 2 or even 6 million a month to live in a place priced like that...and several teachers I teach with do, in fact, live in these 700,000,000 apartments, so I dunno, maybe Koreans all get a kickback from the chebols or something...

[Real Reality]

[Captain Corea]

[livinginkorea]

[TheUrbanMyth]

[Real Reality]

[Real Reality]

The era of professional babysitters
Babysitters who can teach English are particularly in high demand as they provide more benefits for a comparatively low fee. The majority of such babysitters are students who lived in English-speaking countries as children and speak English fluently. They usually make 30,000 won for an hour and a half of babysitting.

Other high-end types of babysitters include well-educated women who can replace parents in educating children at home. They usually charge 40,000 to 60,000 won per hour, although each agency has its own remuneration policy.
KBS Global
http://english.kbs.co.kr/life/trend/1364429_11857.html

[JeJuJitsu]

[huffdaddy]

[some waygug-in]

I think it depends on the school.

The teachers where I am now, teach about half the number of classes that I and the other foreign teacher teaches, but they do have a lot more work per class.

Things to remember: Korean teachers don't have to leave family and friends behind and go live in a foreign country to teach. They don't have all the stresses that come along with this either, things like visas, immigration etc. They also speak the native language and are much more able to change jobs, teach privates or a whole host of other things that we will have trouble with.

As for teaching, I've found that the students generally are far more well behaved with Korean teachers than with us, (of course there are exceptions) so they find the actual classroom experience less stressful and more rewarding.

[schwa]

Housing prices have inflated a lot over recent years. Families moving into higher-end apartments arent first-time buyers -- they're applying accumulated equity. Also consider a lot of Koreans are just a generation off the farm -- as their parents age the land gets sold off & the proceeds get shared around among siblings. I bet the K-teachers you know who buy expensive apartments also have professional spouses (often teachers too). Plus they can dip into their pensions which can be considerable after years of working.

I could think of more interesting ways to spend/invest $700,000 but if thats what floats their boat, its not necessarily such a big stretch.