As of now EPIK gives 2.0 million a month to those in Busan, Incheon, Daegu, Gyeonggi who have

Bachelor's degree in Education / major in Teaching, TESOL, Second Language Studies, or Education

OR
 
Bachelor's degree in any discipline + TEFL/TESOL/CELTA certificate

OR
 
Bachelor's degree in any discipline + Teacher's License

...but... 2023 minimum wagę will exceed 2.0 million a month...

...so the EPIK pay scale will have to be raised. Similar thing happened with the increase in vacation days.

The 26 vacation day thing was a downgrade for me.  In my city I had twenty days plus 10 renewal days. Also, I got any discretionary days that the principal closed the school. I think a lot of people are in my position. My school tacked the Tuesday and Wednesday on to Chuseok this year. I would’ve had to use vacation days to take them, whereas four years ago I just would’ve had those days as bonus days off. I came and did nothing this year as I’m keeping my vacation days for February.

2k Cdn or 1.5k USD a month for Epik....

Jesus *****n Christ...

The more I'm back home, the less I respect those who are desperate enough to take those wages.

The salaries here are insanely high!   Do not settle for shit...and Epik is shit.

You know they're going to add on an extra 150k won per month and laud it as some huge achievement.

Then they're going to ask their NETs to teach at an extra 3 schools in addition to the 2-3 they're currently teaching at, and offer 100k "transportation bonus"

This was posted to the EPIK facebook page. Has anyone heard any rumors about this? China might need to wait another year.

I don't think Epik is ever going to match the salaries in China, but in Korea you don't need to deal with Covid lockdowns putting your school out of business.

It depends how they interpret the working hours per week/month. Epik is 40 hours per week while full time employment is considered 52(?) per week. So that may factor into it

From what I understand, 40 hours per week is the *minimum* number of hours required for a job to be considered full time. 52 is the *maximum* number of hours a job can require an employee to do (12 hours overtime).
If you work 40 hours per week, your base salary will be calculated as though it were 209 hours per month.

Here's where I'm getting that info:
https://www.replicon.com/regulation/south-korea/#:~:text=Employers%20who%20employ%20fewer%20than,only%2052%20hours%20a%20week

So much "oof" to unpack there. 

Just watched a video from an ex-Korea NET teacher who moved to China almost a decade ago, and it looks like the W400,000 housing allowance that can only gets NETs a small one room apartment here can be used to rent one of those larger family style apartments with there rooms over in China (in a Tier 3 city), which usually cost 100,000 mill in Jeonse deposits or more here.

https://youtu.be/SRLuV_G4nUQ

If they're not going to give Nets much of a raise, they should just give the offices of education key money for bigger two room villas, with free internet, free utilities, 100K transportation fee and cover NETs cellphone plans as well. That might be a decent start..

I've been telling folks of this and get flack from a few users on here.  Anyways, do your own research.  My deal has until recently been a bit better so it kept me here and then the whole lockdowns right now over there has kept me out.  But, there are still lots of folks living over there posting on YouTube in 2022 saying they enjoy it.  Some of the Tier one cities do appear to be more modern and cosmopolitan than Seoul.  Bad side is rents are high and you'd better have a good salary.  (Like 25 or 30k rmb)  A lower tier city can get you some really nice places for low rent and still half decent salaries, but will be less cosmopolitan and may have less to do.  (I have researched quite a bit.)  Even the South Africans are finding China a better deal now. 

Anyways, as for EPIK, it had better raise the pay across the board by at least 300K a month to help out slightly.  (Well, it should be more to bring it to 10 or 15 years ago, but 300 is a start.)  Hopefully for everyone and not just the kids living in Seoul all the while ignoring the folks working in the rural provinces.  Especially the last couple of years where it seems rule nazis have been taking over the place.  Outside of Seoul and a couple of metro cities, most of EPIK schools were a bit lenient on some of the ridiculous contract rules.  Better pay more to put up with that too.  (There are actually some lower tier city public schools advertising no desk warming for example - the way Korea use to be.) 

Let's see what happens there.  They market 26 days, but then as some of you said, they turn around and claw back your days when they never did before.  Seems petty.  Teachers leave early on an event day and tell you to stay whereas before they sent you home too and treated you more equal.  Some teachers say "you make more money".  But that hasn't been true in years.  Many Koreans still have outdated notions that this is good pay when it isn't.  Anyways a few hogwans have been raising pay slightly as of late.  So, let's hope EPIK does at least 300k a month or more and doesn't just do it for Seoul while leaving rural EPIK alone. 

Regardless of trolling and obsession over me, many teachers will leave.  I have seen younger teachers complaining about pay and implying they were misled by recruiters and YouTube videos.  But word is beginning to get out about Korea now.  It will be interesting to see how things look once things fully open up. 

I predict that the wage increase will only be enough to ensure that the bottom tiers of the payscale will not be below minimum wage.

Agreed.

They might just scrap the bottom tiers altogether. Frankly, I'm surprised that they haven't done that long ago: why hire people with no TESL or Celta certification (ie tier 3) when there are so many applicant that have it?

They already have.

“Offices of Education are not currently hiring level 3 applicants. As such, all applicants MUST qualify for at least a level 2 on the pay scale BEFORE signing the final contract.”

https://www.epik.go.kr/contents.do?contentsNo=49&menuNo=278

————
If you mean make the bottom level disappear on paper as if it never existed, then yeah, that might be next.

More and more qualifications will be needed to get (adjusted for inflation) lower remuneration.

I've been telling folks of this and get flack from a few users on here.  Anyways, do your own research.  My deal has until recently been a bit better so it kept me here and then the whole lockdowns right now over there has kept me out.  But, there are still lots of folks living over there posting on YouTube in 2022 saying they enjoy it.  Some of the Tier one cities do appear to be more modern and cosmopolitan than Seoul.  Bad side is rents are high and you'd better have a good salary.  (Like 25 or 30k rmb)  A lower tier city can get you some really nice places for low rent and still half decent salaries, but will be less cosmopolitan and may have less to do.  (I have researched quite a bit.)  Even the South Africans are finding China a better deal now. 

Anyways, as for EPIK, it had better raise the pay across the board by at least 300K a month to help out slightly.  (Well, it should be more to bring it to 10 or 15 years ago, but 300 is a start.)  Hopefully for everyone and not just the kids living in Seoul all the while ignoring the folks working in the rural provinces.  Especially the last couple of years where it seems rule nazis have been taking over the place.  Outside of Seoul and a couple of metro cities, most of EPIK schools were a bit lenient on some of the ridiculous contract rules.  Better pay more to put up with that too.  (There are actually some lower tier city public schools advertising no desk warming for example - the way Korea use to be.) 

Let's see what happens there.  They market 26 days, but then as some of you said, they turn around and claw back your days when they never did before.  Seems petty.  Teachers leave early on an event day and tell you to stay whereas before they sent you home too and treated you more equal.  Some teachers say "you make more money".  But that hasn't been true in years.  Many Koreans still have outdated notions that this is good pay when it isn't.  Anyways a few hogwans have been raising pay slightly as of late.  So, let's hope EPIK does at least 300k a month or more and doesn't just do it for Seoul while leaving rural EPIK alone. 

Regardless of trolling and obsession over me, many teachers will leave.  I have seen younger teachers complaining about pay and implying they were misled by recruiters and YouTube videos.  But word is beginning to get out about Korea now.  It will be interesting to see how things look once things fully open up. 

The one good thing about China is that teachers can work their way up to hold high-level positions, such as headteacher, and even the head of the department. The guy from the China apartment video has been there for almost 10 years and holds a position as head of the English program in his region along with another Native English Teacher (Teacher Val), who is also on youtube and has been living in China for 20 years now. From what I remember from one of the comments on teacher Val's videos is that the salary continues to go up every year that you work, and there is no cap. So if the teacher is working 20 years that's 20 years of salary increases! Regardless of how xenophobic some Chinese citizens can be, the economic opportunities are definitely there.

I haven't heard of any Office of Education allowing any of the EPIK teachers to hold high positions there, even the level "S" salary of 3.0 million won in SEOUL,  was only available to someone who worked as a public school teacher back home in one of the 7 English speaking countries for 7 years or at an international school, or had a Ph.D. in TESOL. Regular EPIK teachers were blocked from ever attaining that level,
which is ridiculous because a career teacher back home would most likely not leave their career to go teach across the world unless it is at an international school where their career will be valid upon returning back home. Also, 3.0 mill is way too low for someone with a Ph.D in TESOL and several years of work abroad in the field.. they should be getting 5.0 mill~ 7.0 mill with experience...

Unfortunately, I can't take advantage of the China opportunities anymore, but if I could I would definitely try for a job there...... If someone hasn't yet invested in learning the Korean language/ culture for over a decade and doesn't have a Korean family here, China would definitely offer more opportunities to save, explore, and experience.