Enjoy paying 1800 a month for a bachelor pad and owning a car so you can drive to your suburban Walmart.

The math...

Teach 20 hours a week at a typical afterschool hagwon, at $16/hour, would be $1200 over 4 weeks, which is less than 1.2 million.

Are you calculating a 40-hour hagwon week?

Pay was steadily increasing before these women ruined it for all of us.

It was the facebook explosion that ruined everything here.

Korean inflation is destroying what little teachers are paid here in any case.

Hagwons are generally 2.2ish + housing + medical/pension + severance. That's more than 2.5.

I guess with Walmart you get Karens instead of spoiled children. Pick your poison.

You know, hanging round TEFL sites after you've left TEFL to sh-t on TEFL is not a good look. Though it's a very popular one judging by the numbers of people who do it on reddit. Have enough confidence in your own choice of career to negate the need to simultaneously cr-p on others'.  And spare us the 'I'm just trying to help others by making them see reality' type response.

Feel free to point out one thing I said in the above post that is wrong btw.

Feel free to point out one thing I said in the above post that is wrong btw.

Could all be true, may well be, but that doesn't have anything to do with the point I was making. I used to teach EFL in Eastern Europe in the past but strangely enough I've never felt the need to hang around on E. European TEFL websites telling people it's a crap market and they should come and work in Asia instead. Why not? Because I'd come across as a d-ck.  For some reason that never seems to occur to a lot of international school teachers. Or Koreaboo.

This is not exactly new news.   It has been something that has been observed for years.  However, with people coming and going w/o knowing past history, they think being the working poor is the norm.  It isn't.  From a post, I made several years ago that is still relevant today.  The only change from then to now is I make approx $94k/yr based on my current salary PI.  It is a solid yearly increase that is also complemented by retroactive pay for inflation.  You won't see any of that in Korea.
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Quote from: hangook77 on December 01, 2020, 07:53:59 am
You'll listen to all the apologists yap on about how wonderful it is when it isn't.  I've done the math repeatedly.  Exchange rates for Americans are much worse than years ago, a much higher cost of living.  So, in short, it is much less won to send home and you get much less dollars on a worse exchange rate.

Before the Great Recession, an American could easily end up with $1500 (USD) in their bank account back home each month.  More than enough to pay off student loans very quickly and then save some money.  At that, your won here went further and you really could drink lots of booze (Korean of course) if you wished.

Nowadays, you are lucky to get 700 US a month in your bank account back home each month and a 5 to 7 hundred student loan payment will take that all up.  Not much for saving or paying off those 50K student loans all that fast.  I guess rich kids whose mom and dad paid their schooling or most of it (IE  student loan of 10K or something), those kids who love BTS or whatever will come for any low wage cause they're dumb and don't understand the value of money.

The truth is the savings and money earning potential here is a fraction of what it was expecially with many salaries staying low.  2 million won was a decent salary 15 years or so ago.  Even 10 years ago it was okay.  Not going into 2021.  You need to make close to 3 million won to have that same power which I do.  I couldn't survive on 2 unless I married a local woman who had a decent job and salary or something.


(My reply follows)

I fully agree with this.  When I was in Korea, I started out at 1.9 in 2000.  I went up to around 3.4M and then took a pay cut to 2.7 in the uni system.  The wages have stagnated and depreciated to wages that make teachers impoverished.   I also cannot understand how people believe 2.5 or even 3.0M is 'a lot' of money.  It simply does not provide you enough to prosper.  You can keep your head above water, but you're just on borrowed time.

For those that think 'free housing' is a golden ticket, the concept of a free roach-infested studio or small bedroom apartment is not really free.  If you own your own place (as I still do in Korea) which is clean, modern, new and provides an objectively good quality of life-at-home, then 2.0M a month would be feasible if you don't care much about the future.

Can you raise a family on that?  Not really.  It has been done.  There are many Korean families that are living off 2.0 or even less.  We call them the 'poor' of Korean society.  It is sad to see, but English teachers are essentially classed today as part of the 'working poor' of the Korean economy.

When I left Korea, I was making 2.7M a month.  My wife was netting nearly 5.0M (she works for the MOJ).  I calculated my future pension totals if I stayed in the country and the math was very disheartening.  There is a reason why so many elderly are collecting recycling or committing suicide when they reach old age.  So I left when offered a gov't position back home and have reintegrated back into Canadian society.

I currently make $88k/yr until next Feb's pay increment increase.  I still own my place in Korea and will be returning for a month next week, but I would not trade my current circumstances of security of income, air quality, food quality, overall quality of life and enjoyment to be back permanently in Korea.    Many here may argue that money isn't 'everything', but it 'IS' pretty damn useful and allows you the freedom and flexibility to do what you want, when you want, and not need to ask permission to do it.  I read too often about people losing their jobs here, having little to no cash and sleeping on someone else's couch or mattress because they were kicked out of their place (having the money to buy your own would have saved you that).

So as my wife has had her permanent residency (PR) application filed earlier this week, she's giving up nearly 60M/yr to be with me, but we can do this BECAUSE we have the money to support ourselves and do what we want while she establishes herself and puts down roots in Canada.  The gov't will not call her a 'waygookin' as an excuse to treat her like an unwanted-yet-tolerated 2nd class citizen.  That is not part of the culture and also extremely illegal here.   We planned for over 5 years.  We saved money and made more.  We could not have done that making 2.0M a month and living in employer-provided housing.  I would find it hard to do it on 3.0M w/o her income.

If you plan on doing math with 5 or 10 yr plans...I would reconsider your strategy.  5-10yrs in Korea is a long time (and this assumes stable income with predetermined savings that will not be spent due to 'once-in-a-lifetime' experiences that so many take up on) and you will make yourself essentially unemployable back home after being away for so long (especially if you do not work in a uni).  I've been saying this for years, but every time I keep reading this board, I keep seeing the same plans, promises, and frustrations as the endless revolving door of people willing to work for slave-wages keeps coming here.

Uhhh...

May I also draw your attention to the accommodation. Four to a room.

And just so you know... that will be a 6 day work week. And for the 4 million it's going to be 14 hour shifts. Should I get the application ready for you?

C'mon guys, wages were always crap in Korea for a standard gig. It was all about the unique cultural experience. Even when I first arrived in the late 90's it wouldn't have been able to compete with a taxi driver's income in Oz. Who went to Korea for the money?

C'mon guys, wages were always crap in Korea for a standard gig. It was all about the unique cultural experience. Even when I first arrived in the late 90's it wouldn't have been able to compete with a taxi driver's income in Oz. Who went to Korea for the money?

I was making 3M in 1996 at about 750KRW to the greenback. That
was USD48K/year. Yes, I was here for the money. The place disgusted
me many times in the 90s. I wasn't here for cultural play time. There
was also the fact that we were in extreme demand, which was a nice
change coming out of uni.