Likely somebody will comment on the substance of this article eventually, but what I want to point out is this paragraph:
This year, the government is expected to spend some 180 billion won to employ about 4,500 – 5,000 foreign teachers at elementary and secondary schools nationwide. A native English speaker who has just started to teach English in Korea can receive a salary equivalent to that paid to a Korean teacher with five years of experience, an official said.
You do the math here, and that works out to a maximum funding of 3 million a month for native speaking teacher. Factor in overhead, and now you know where to start your salary negotiations folks!
{ 34 comments… read them below or add one }
The whole article is shit including what you just quoted. It goes to show just how worthless we’re considered. THIS guy’s in charge?
On what planet does a rookie whitey earn as much as an experienced Korean teacher? The salary cap is set at 2.5 million won, and that’s for somebody who has years of experience and an advanced degree. Rookies start out at 1.8 million, and TaLK people start at 1.5. Our wages have been stagnant for years.
The term ‘overhead’ refers to costs associated to simply maintaining an organization’s existence – in essence, rent and utilities, but also including some administrative salaries. Given that the organizations in this case are state-owned schools, actual rent is zero and utilities are likely subsidized. Really, the salaries of administrative personnel are the the relevant factor among overhead costs here.
Non-overhead costs – office and classroom supplies, variable labor, and facilities and machine maintenance, to name a few – represent considerable costs to non-revenue-generating entities such as these.
Wooo….a discussion on cost and government accounting, not what I would expect at ‘da Hole.
Without any idea of Korean educational accounting, I guess the first way to start is to consider the hiring process. If its done by the individual school, perhaps its done in the course of normal school funding and the amount is “earmarked” for a qualified English teacher. If this is case, my first reaction would be the major expense would be the visa, as the schools would individually need apply.
If the program is done by an extra-ordinary body, the there are more admin costs that are more directly related to the teachers that could be accounted for. This could be rather large considering the cost and layers of bureaucracy that would make up such an government office. The visa costs I expect would be lower, as they would likely set-up a bulk processing system with the Immigration office.
And to raise a specter that may be controversial to some here (albeit in ways universal among national governments), how much of that money is actually going to go where it should go? Is part of that money going to go off quiet the teachers unions, used for some other project, or perhaps more practical to “persuade” a senior immigration official to expedite visa applications?
Brian, you forgot to mention the following:
-Severance pay
-Housing (worth at least 1 mil/month in current market)
-TaLK requires 15 hrs of teaching / week (as advertised)
-Public school teachers in Korea had to compete like mofos to get their jobs. Did you?
-Teachers in general make a damn good living in Korea (see link below). English teachers for sure have it even better than Korean teachers money wise.
-You always have the *option* of starting at a higher rate if you do your research
A recent college grad or a even a dropout could EASILY be making as much as a 5 year veteran teacher in Korea, which is ridiculous. And which is why I’m considering taking the route some time soon.
http://www.oecd.org/document/6/0,2340,en_2649_201185_33712902_1_1_1_1,00.html
#4. The housing in my apartment complex is a whopping 300,000 won a month. If you want to live in Daejeon, there are two available apartments on my floor at this price with no key money needed upfront. I must warn you though that the apartment is in a poor part of town and not in the best condition. And remember, these jobs are nationwide, and employees will not be getting the best of whatever accommodations are currently available.
By the way, one point you missed was that we are also entitled to a pension. However, since foreign teachers are not truly working 40 hours a week, some employers will not honor it. At least my boss put in my share; however, it was a bit of a shock when I found out that he hadn’t matched it on his end.
#4. The housing in my apartment complex is a whopping 300,000 won a month. If you want to live in Daejeon, there are two available apartments on my floor at this price with no key money needed upfront. I must warn you though that the apartment is in a poor part of town and not in the best condition. And remember, these jobs are nationwide, and employees will not be getting the best of whatever accommodations are currently available.
By the way, one point you missed was that we are also entitled to a pension. However, since foreign teachers are not truly working 40 hours a week, some employers will not honor it. At least my boss put in my share; however, it was a bit of a shock when I found out that he hadn’t matched it on his end.
Well, the main idea from that article shouldn’t be how much we cost but that the boss has this kind of attitude toward native speakers. Talk all you want about the usefulness/uselessness of native speakers in the language classroom—we’re generally not used well enough to help as much as we could—but you hate to have guys like this in charge of quote-unquote English education.
Anyway, it’s a bad idea to do side-by-side comparisons with salaries. There are too many variables, and it’s easily forgotten that supply-and-demand brought the salaries to what they are today. If Korea were offering 1.5 or something back when the exchange rates were good, or if Korea didn’t pay airfare or housing, how many people would come here over Japan, China, or Taiwan? You get the picture.
Sure, we get free housing. Then again so do many of the Korean teachers, who either live at home or who live in homes with their spouses paid for by their parents. We also are separated by friends, family, and support networks, so an exta few hundred a month isn’t too much to ask.
Sure, public school teachers have to compete for their jobs. As they should, given the level of English many of them have.
Sure, public school teachers completed teachers’ training. But their English isn’t very good.
Sure, foreign teachers usually don’t have this training and aren’t required to. But their English is better.
Sure, foreign teachers get severance. But we don’t get holiday and performance bonuses, and we don’t get “gifts” from parents.
Sure, foreign teachers usually work less hours. But, well, we’re paid less and we’re “assistant teachers” after all. Even teachers with advanced degrees have their salaries capped and are used as decoration.
Costs related to visa processing, or fees due for procurring teachers, are non-overhead.
Sorry – I feel a bit like wjk in doing a double post, but I didn’t mean to sound so abrupt. The costs mentioned are considerable, but they aren’t categorized as overhead.
Yeah, 1 mil/month may be considerably off. But I’m not that certain — people have been saying that real estate is impossibly expensive in Korea.
Hi Brian,
Sure, the market for native English speakers is ridiculous in Korea. No argument there. But what you said is very likely not true. Put in similar hours as Korean teachers do , and a rookie expat teacher would make just as much, if not more, than a Korean teacher 5 years on the job. If I went over there right now and put in some reasonable overtime hrs, I figure I could easily make 3.5 to 4.5 a month, which beats the hell out of most teacher salaries among Koreans.
So yeah, expat teachers have it pretty good. So I’m not sure why you would use words such as “worthless” to describe your situation. Confuses regular folks like myself, notwithstanding the main point of the article.
Oh, and the salary cap doesn’t help your argument. It only indicates that without the cap, salaries would get way out of proportion vis a vis common notions of fairness (indeed it is out of proportion already in that sense). Money wise, this can only mean that you can make that much more money teaching on the side during off hours.
Guys, you don’t know how lucky you are.
What’s going on right now is called a global financial crisis. The governments of the individual countries comprising that globe (except for the contrarian Japanese and Germans) are responding to this crisis in time-honored traditional fashion: they’re spending like mad. The government spending is supposed to replace the spending that consumers are no longer providing. It’s called fiscal stimulus, and it has ONE overriding purpose: to keep people working. LOCAL people, citizens. Not foreigners.
Obama is going to start with about a trillion in infrastructure. Expect that to double or triple in various ways in the next year or two. Korea’s got $45 billion already booked in capital spending by state-owned firms. Sure, there will be bridges to nowhere, waste and inefficiency. But efficient bridge-building is only a secondary goal.
The value of this foreign teacher program is less than half a percent of Korea’s total stimulus. Do not wonder that much of that amount is going to be diverted to paying salaries for Koreans – that is very much the point. That foreign teachers are able to capture more than half the total budget is already a tough pill to swallow for Koreans. One is six main household earners has lost their job in the past 3 months. Have a look at the list of declining indicators, almost all in double digits.
You want respect? Forget it, this is Korea, and you’re not wanted here. You’re tolerated only with gritted teeth, and they hate having to tolerate you. You want more money? That’s easy – hustle. You’re in a recession-proof industry. Get out there and sling your ass, English for sale. Find out how the salarymen are being tested, what they have to do to pass their next performance evaluation, and help them to pass. Find out what test the kids need to pass to make their moms and teachers happy, and help them pass it. You’ll rake it in. But the economy’s going down, kiddos, so stop whining about inefficient government programs and not enough respect – the point now is not efficiency, the point is for governments to spend, spend, spend, and pump money out into the economy. Go get yours. You want respect? Accountability? Give me a fucking break. Korea is NOT changing. Don’t wait around for it to happen. It ain’t gonna.
The attitude of the Korean guy is very telling. It reminds me of a while ago trying to apply for a home tutoring license. It was denied because our landlady has our house registered as a business to lower her tax payments. I was a bit miffed about this, and also miffed when the MOE chap told my wife ‘We have to make things difficult for foreigners’.
The attitudes of many of the MOE people stink.
Most Korean English teachers (except many of the younger ones) can barely speak even basic English. The Korean English education system is useless because of the idiots who are in charge of it, not because of ‘under-qualified’ native speakers. I would not be at all suprised if the KTU or some other nefarious organisation were behind the ‘demonisation’ of native speakers.
Well, you make good points JW, and I don’t want to clog up the comment section more than usual. I just want to say I think the salary cap thing helps my argument rather than hurts it. Sure, maybe we COULD earn a ton of money if we got raises each year, but we don’t. Put in a decade at one school with your Master’s in TESOL and you’re still making as much as me with only a couple years’ experience. We shouldn’t be talking about hypotheticals, we should be talking about the reality.
As for making money on the side, it’s illegal for foreign teachers and many don’t do it for that reason (and b/c it can be a hassle). Also illeegal for Korean PS teachers, too, but many of them do it. They won’t get deported.
Perhaps worthless was the wrong word, b/c clearly the guys they interviewed attributed some worth to us. But the one guy said that we’re just assistant teachers and thus experience doesn’t matter, which means that regardless of qualifications we’re expected to fill a strictly proscribed role. But that’s all hypothetical, I’m sorry, because in reality a lot of us are teaching full schedules on our own, are designing all our materials, and are left without any support whatsoever. Assistant?
Anyway, living in Korea is nice and teaching provides the means to do so. After a certain point you start asking the difficult questions, though.
There was a report in the local media recently that LMB was angry with the MOE culture entrenched during the 10 years of leftie governments, and all the senior executives in the Ministry seemed to have been pressured to resign.
JW is not factoring in the White Envelope, which I’m sure is a nice supplement for the average Korean teacher, probably doubling or tripling the legitimate paycheck.
Suuure you would. Why not come on over and try that? I’m sure your cockles will be warmed by the friendly response KorAms always receive from their ethnic brethren here in Asia’s most welcoming country.
Wedge, you’re also forgetting the Choseok and Solnal bonuses we don’t get.
Spot on, Wedge. As a group, native-speaker teachers aren’t part of that practice at all.
Hey Brian,
I’m curious, why would any expat teacher find it reasonable to ask to be compensated for being separated from friends and family? First of all, your parents and friends *can* help you with a click of a button. And did the Koreans compel you to move over there in any way? No, obviously you went because the money making is good.
I didn’t know that it was illegal to teach on the side. But is there any real risk of getting deported? From what some others in this site have said, making 4 to 5 a month is quite doable with some extra hours on the side. That’s alot of money in Korea — you can easily support a regular size family with that kind of money.
“Suuure you would. Why not come on over and try that? I’m sure your cockles will be warmed by the friendly response KorAms always receive from their ethnic brethren here in Asia’s most welcoming country.”
Hi Linkd,
Actually, I am seriously considering it (I’ve actually done it as short stint already). But I suppose I don’t have to limit myself to teaching english. And I’m not sure why you seem to think it would be so bad to be working there as a Korean American. Are you Korean American?
Wouldn’t even matter that much anyway. I speak good enough Korean to be able to blend in without a hitch.
It’s funny how some people won’t accept anyone’s perspective other than their own. Some people have been treated a little differently here than others. Some people have had the same treatment and haven’t let it cause the whole experience to be a wash. I imagine it has a bit to do with attitude.
I’m sure that Isaac is an alright guy. He feeds on something that we don’t all hunger for. I just wonder when in the name of God he turns it off. Can you go through life perpetually acting? I sometimes wonder how closely Bozo resembles Crusty.
You want respect? Forget it, this is Korea, and you’re not wanted here. You’re tolerated only with gritted teeth, and they hate having to tolerate you. You want more money? That’s easy – hustle. You’re in a recession-proof industry. Get out there and sling your ass, English for sale. Find out how the salarymen are being tested, what they have to do to pass their next performance evaluation, and help them to pass. Find out what test the kids need to pass to make their moms and teachers happy, and help them pass it. You’ll rake it in. But the economy’s going down, kiddos, so stop whining about inefficient government programs and not enough respect – the point now is not efficiency, the point is for governments to spend, spend, spend, and pump money out into the economy. Go get yours. You want respect? Accountability? Give me a fucking break. Korea is NOT changing. Don’t wait around for it to happen. It ain’t gonna.
Just had to copy & paste some good words I seen hear laitly. Sae hae bok mani paduseyo gregorian style.
JW:”If I went over there right now and put in some reasonable overtime hrs, I figure I could easily make 3.5 to 4.5 a month, which beats the hell out of most teacher salaries among Koreans.”
Linkd: “You want respect? Forget it, this is Korea, and you’re not wanted here. You’re tolerated only with gritted teeth, and they hate having to tolerate you. You want more money? That’s easy – hustle.”
In other words, you’re talking about a sustenance wage in exchange for generally demeaning work conditions and substandard living conditions, and the willingness to put disrupt one’s long-term career goals for a couple of years.
Hi Mizar,
You beat a dead horse, so I will also. You forget to mention that ordinary expats have the incredible option to make money and travel the world simply because they’re capable of speaking their own language. Korea, Japan, Taiwan, heck I hear even the Arabs are hiring in droves. It’s just incredible when you think about it. All because you can talk in English.
There really is no room to complain when you consider that in no other language is that even possible on such a massive scale.
@11
You are correct sir.
Nonsense, JW. That is the red herring of the thread. If Korea were forced by native English speaker to hire them, you might have a point.
But the fact remains that Korea could hire any number of non-native English speakers to teach them English. If they choose to hire native English speakers, then the blame should not be improperly placed onto the native English speakers they recruit.
ESL teachers in fact have every right to complain for being unfairly targeted for attack for simply doing their jobs. After all, I no one overseas singles out Korean drycleaners for unfair criticism in this manner. Rather, they are recognized for their dilligence and their right to earn a living is acknowledged.
The real issue here is jealousy and xenophobia.
Hi Mizar
Absolutely, Koreans are jealous and can get very xenophobic, I agree. And of course expat teachers have every right to complain about serious cases of injustice and violations against their rights. What I meant by “complain” are statements like “demeaning work conditions and substandard living conditions”. Why would you get so bent out of shape about the general low quality of work conditions there when 1) Koreans have it just as bad, if not worse and 2) when you are getting paid good money and for what, for being able to talk in your own language? What other speakers of their native language can claim to be able to do that on a massive scale as English speakers are able? This is not a red herring. You are the only ones able to make money off doing this on such a scale. So there is no legitimate “others” you can compare yourselves to in order to show others that you have the right to work under better conditions.
Ok, let me address why I consider this a red herring.
ESL teachers are not in fact being paid to “talk in (their) own language, but to teach it, which requires skills, dedication, hard work, etc. Those who sincerely devote themselves to a task should be able to earn a living from it, especially when they hone and apply those skills in their work.
Now let me point out that native English speakers are not the only ones who parlay natural qualities, talents and skills into a livlihood. Models capitalize on their good looks into economic opportunities. Musicians use their natural talents to earn a living, and so forth.
As for “Koreans have it just as bad, if not worse” that argument cuts both ways. I believe that Samsung employees are grossly overpaid, even by US standards for the quality of the work they do.
Conversely, a few of my colleagues at Samsung quit to take lower paying teaching jobs because of the status this imparts in Korean society. They had it better than most, but preferred to teach. The ESL teacher with similar academic credentials is not afforded this level of respect.
What you are doing is viewing ESL teachers in contempt simply because they were born in English speaking countries, which is a form of discrimination.
Do expat ESL teachers really have such a great advantage over native Korean teachers? And do whatever advantages they may have not come with trade-offs that disadvantage them as well?
I say that if a non Korean desires to earn a living in a way that contributes to Korean society, she should be viewed with some respect, rather than disdain.
Hi Mizar, you say
“Now let me point out that native English speakers are not the only ones who parlay natural qualities, talents and skills into a livlihood. Models capitalize on their good looks into economic opportunities. Musicians use their natural talents to earn a living, and so forth.”
Right, so when we are faced with other people whose disproportional ability to make a living *primarily* depends on the natural god given quality they have, we tend to be hold them in contempt, because, well, they didn’t really work for it. Just as most people hold super-rich inheritors in contempt. It’s not a new idea. I guess it also depends on who’s holding who in contempt. So if I whine about being born a Korean and living as an “oppressed” minority in America under the “tyranny” of white racism, a hungry child in North Korea has every right to think of me as an idiot.
Usually it’s not good practice or very smart to whine too much when the natives around you have it just as bad or worse. And they of course can’t go overseas in droves and make a decent living just beause primarily because they can speak their own language and had some college education.
“Right, so when we are faced with other people whose disproportional ability to make a living *primarily* depends on the natural god given quality they have, we tend to be hold them in contempt, because, well, they didn’t really work for it.”
Use “I” instead of “we” here and this pointless, off-topic argument can be brought to an end.
#27: While I’m not disagreeing with the rest of your post, I will say this about Samsung; their employee’s make very little, *especially* compared to any similar American firm. It’s surprising, but that’s how business is done in South Korea, more-so I found with bigger companies who squeeze as much as they can. For example, most Samsung engineers on a 50 hour work week make on average 51k a year before taxes, but are given the opportunity to work as long as they want. So typically you’ll always see at least 1/3 of the workers staying there past midnight. The models probably get more per hour than everyone cept the heads.
I have no idea where you got your info, your friend most likely left because he was given menial tasks so had no future and/or because he wasn’t getting paid a lot. Teaching can be very lucrative if you have the right contacts, and showing parents your Samsung pedigree sure helps.
Hey JW, so we do not entirely agree and yet we are able to debate these matters with a civil, dispassionate tone! You comport yourself admirably and stay on topic. What a rare pleasure.
You wrote: “So if I whine about being born a Korean and living as an “oppressed” minority in America under the “tyranny” of white racism, a hungry child in North Korea has every right to think of me as an idiot…Usually it’s not good practice or very smart to whine too much when the natives around you have it just as bad or worse.”
Agreed! Generally, the expats I have known may occassionally bitch/commiserate with one another, they are generally sensitive in dealing with nationals. Forums like this can afford them an outlet for venting pent-up annoyances. I wouldn’t judge any of the contributors here by their unguarded comments.
Korea still has a very tentative, uneasy relationship with the rest of the world. The language and cultural differences seem too great or too hard to bridge, and, instead of a sense of commonality, there arises mistrust. This accounts for much of the fear and suspicion with which outsiders are viewed.
If they are from Western nations or Japan, they are not going to catch a break. To paraphrase an old saying, My cousin’s good fortune makes my stomach ache.”
That said, Korea is making great progress as well. The media is increasingly exploring these themes from the perspective of outsiders, for instance.
***
dry,
I know that engineers are underpaid and overworked. My background is marketing.
This debate comes up every few weeks. Are foreign teachers skilled professionals who are being mistreated by a callous and xenophobic Korean system? Or are they quasi-unemployable slackers who should be grateful they can get a paycheck at all?
Well, both actually. At the entry level, I think foreigners should be grateful for the contracts they’re getting and STFU about how much “respect” they get. Yes, Korean teachers get more respect. They also work nearly twice the hours. In country that measures quality by input not output (the results are not as important as the sacrifice you put in to get them), don’t expect this “respect” to be forthcoming anytime soon.
However, for Westerners who are “qualified,” the system is woefully inadequate. Career teachers (foreigners, that is) here are treated only slightly better than backpackers, if that. For all the squawking that Koreans do about getting “qualified” and “licensed” teachers, they sure have a funny way of going about it.
OK, JW, since you seem pretty sincere, here’s my understanding of your financial prospects:
Start here. I know this couple. JS is not a native speaker, but he’s fluent.
http://questforcuteness.blogspot.com/2008/12/now-i-understand.html
You’ll take a base salary of max 1.6 mil. You’ll need that security because the rest of your work will be unreliable. You’ll contact a few agents to get you private work, or build up your own ajumma network to teach kids in a certain apartment complex. Each extra job you set up will block off 2-4 hours per week, and, since you’re Korean and competing with SKY university students (과외), you can’t command much premium for being a KorAm – let’s be really generous and say you might get 35K per hour. So each extra gig brings in another 300-550K per month. So you need to hustle up another 4-6 gigs per month in addition to your hakwon base to earn your target. And those jobs will continuously roll over, so you’ll need to keep hustling to replace lost classes.
Eventually, say within 2 years, if you’re good, you’ll settle into a fairly good earnings groove. How easy this will be will also depend a fair bit on how good-looking you are.
Your rent can be held to ~400K if you have a roommate. If you live alone, any place that’s less that 600K is nowhere you’d want to bring a girl to.
I am not Korean American. I have known several (less than 20)ethnically Korean returnees (I avoid entangling definitions on ‘what is a kyopo’, etc). They all hated it here, whether they were fresh grads who came to teach English or a little older and working in the chaebol or financial companies. They left. I therefore predict the same for you, most especially if you choose to join a big-brand chaebol. You will not be able to “blend in” in a chaebol. Maybe you felt pretty welcome during your short stint, but, like the slow mounting of an immune response to an invading virus, your ‘real’ Korean co-workers will eventually identify you as a foreign invader and find a way to ensure your inability to thrive.
I think you’re on the right track that the way for a foreigner (and you are one) to have the best Korean experience is to keep their schedule flexible, make as much as they can off teaching, and make sure they take 2 months or more off each year to travel elsewhere.
Hi LinkD,
Thank you for the information! Two months off, that’s pretty amazing. I guess I’m a bit unusual and biased since I haven’t had a real vacation for the past 2 years. One of the things I’ve always said to myself is how thankful I am that I have Korea or jobs around NYC that require Korean ability to fall back on. It’s like an automatic safety net that exists just because I am who I am. That’s basically why I can never fully agree with expats in Korea who complain about the work conditions there more often than not.
I’m sorry to hear that your Korean American friends hated it there. I hope things turned out better for them. I’m also sorry to say, however, that for many Korean Americans, they go to Korea primarily looking to make easy money and party for a year or two before coming back to the states where they can resume their “normal” lives. No real intent to adapt, so it’s no surprise that most of them hate it there.
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