Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Isiod]

Thought a newbie, like myself, might find this interesting. I was offered a job at 2.1 per month for 120 hours per 4 weeks (option 1). I assumed this was better than the standard 2.0 per month, 120 hours per month (option 2). I know this has appeared before, but here are the calculations.

Hours

120 per 4 weeks = 1566 hours per year*
120 per 1 month = 1440 hours per year

Difference is 126 hours (an entire bloody month)

Pay

Option 1 = 16092 won per hour
Option 2 = 16667 won per hour

Therefore if option 1 was 120 per month you would only be earning
1.93 mil per month.

NB you make 1.2 mil extra due to 126 more hours.

*assuming you work 6 hours a day mon-fri.

[goodgood]

Wow, I've never seen the four week 120 hours thing. Hope that hagwans don't wise up and all start doing that. I'd hate to lose my overtime for doing nothing extra.

[plokiju]

I'm bored so I decided to check your numbers since something seemed a bit funny about them. I came up with something different. Here's what I got:

4 week option: 52 weeks/4 x 120 hours = 1560 hours
1 month option: 12 months x 120 hours = 1440 hours

I think the problem was pay. Working on a monthly paycheque you would get paid 12 times. Getting paid every 4th week gives you 13 paycheques.

12 months x 2.0M/month = 24M won
52 weeks/4 weeks x 2.1M/4 weeks = 27.3M won

Putting it in per hour terms:

4 week option: 27.3M won/1560 hours = 17,500 won/hour
1 month option: 24M won/1440 hours = 16,667 won/hour

You may work an extra months worth of hours but you do get paid for them, if I understand the payment schedule. Also if you throw in the holidays, since it's unlikely you'd actually get 120 hours in 4 weeks you'd probably come out even further ahead going with the 4 week option. If you only get paid 12 times though then yeah, it's crap.

[jazblanc77]

Not only that, but they would probably try to say that since you didn't work on certain national holidays that you wouldn't be paid for them.

There's no way in h3ll that I would sign a contract with a 4 week stipulation in it.

[Hyeon Een]

ECC works like that. You are paid something like every 28 days... except when there are public holidays or something. I figured I'd be getting 13 paychecks when I worked for them but it's not the way it works. They way they figure things you end up being paid once a month.

You should really get that 120 changed to 'classes' not hour. When I worked at ECC my contract was for 100 hours but it still worked out at more than 35 classes a week because they were only 40 minutes long. If I'd been doing 120 hours I would have been exhausted..

[Isiod]

Hey this is definitely a task for passing the time.

Plokiju the deal I was offered was only going to pay me per month (ie 12 times), so yeah it is average.

[plokiju]

I guess I wouldn't make a very good hagwon owner with my strange ideas about fairness and my inability to use or even spot misleading language.

I'm surprised ECC would do that since their teachers' salaries are already lower than virtually everyone else's.

[Mr. BlackCat]

The way ECC works is that each 'month' (session) comprises of 20 teaching days. These loosely fall into months, so you get paid 12 times. Due national holidays and random 'vacation' days you end up working 20 days a month. Each paycheque is for those 20 days. It is NOT March 1-31.

There can be good and bad with this, mostly with overtime. For example, if I were on the ECC system at my new job I wouldn't have gotten OT for January's intensives because within the first 20 teaching days I didn't go over hours. However, because the month went longer I did indeed excede my hours. BUT, if I had intensives in a month like Feb, then I wouldn't get OT at my new job just because there are fewer days in it. At ECC, every month is equal in length. And you sometimes get a random day off to balance the schedule.

I would like to see the system changed to a weekly one. How it is now your employer can work you like a dog one week and then lighten it up the next and you don't see any compesation on payday. A big example of this are summer intensives from mid-July to mid-August.

I also agree with a previous poster about the 40 minute class thing. That's why its important for us to clarify this issue in the contract. I got my new employer to say one class=one hour. Others did not. One thing I can say about ECC, it sure did teach me alot about what to demand in a contract!

[buster brown]

Our unigwon contract states "72 hours per month". But then they pay us once a month, based on a 28-day "month". The way they make up for the extra 4 weeks per year is that we get two 2-week vacation periods per year, one in the summer and the other in the winter. During vacation "months", we're paid for 6 weeks. It makes it seem as though our vacation is free to the school, but I really believe that they use it for ease of accounting. We're still paid overtime for anything over 18 hours per week, so I don't have a problem with the 4-week pay periods every month.

[plokiju]

They had 20 day sessions at Wonderland too, where I managed to last for 6 months. I didn't mind that aspect of it. Terrible hours, bad pay, and a bunch of other things but at least I knew I'd get a day off sometime during the month. My contract was for 110 hours and I never got any overtime so that wasn't an issue.

I think I'd prefer to work over 20 days and get a few days off. I guess it all depends on whether you are getting overtime. Overtime on a 120 hour contract though would mean you'd be working a hell of a lot, especially if they were 60 minute hours.

[poet13]

I spent 18 months at an ECC. Got all kinds of screwed with that gimmick. The holiday thing too. Found myself working 40 hours a week for three weeks, then with Chuseok ending up with about 3 hours of OT!