What's the lowest salary for an E2?

I heard of someone working F/t (8 hrs a day, 5 days a week) for 1.5M + accom.

Is that even allowed under the conditions of the E2?

 

That’s under minimum wage isn’t it?

What a dope to take that job, I guess their love of bts nourishes them.



***Yup 1.9 is the minimum monthly wage.
https://hrmasia.com/south-korea-officially-sets-next-years-minimum-wage-rate-at-9160-won/

That’s under minimum wage isn’t it?

Does the E2 specify that the employee must be paid minimum wage?

Does the E2 specify that the employee must be paid minimum wage?

That article says it is across all industries. But they may factor in flight money and/or housing as income?? Not sure entirely though.

The employer would definitely be doing some shady accounting on the employee’s government contributions.

E-2 pay will get lower folks, because people will allow it to.

1.6 m has been the basement I've met personally.

2.0 was standard in 2002.

to work for under 2.4 mill (with tons of deductions) is worthy of pause: why?

I heard of someone working F/t (8 hrs a day, 5 days a week) for 1.5M + accom.
Is that even allowed under the conditions of the E2?

I believe this is illegal since it's under minimum wage. The minimum wage should be 1.9 mill won as of 2022. 
There is a loophole that the academy found which allows them to do this. Most likely the academy probably just records the teacher's wages officially as 1.9 or 2.0 by including the 400,000  or 500,000 accomodation cost/ housing allowance in the salary, and then they withhold that amount, so the teacher ends up with only 1.5 mill in their bank account each month. Whatever sh**ty hagwon is doing this needs to be reported. Someone needs to tell that teacher to get out of there quickly.

Even the government scholarship TaLK program which was 1.5 mill plus free accommodation on top of that is no longer running. Paying a University educated overseas E-2 visa holder the same as what a local Korean minimum wage worker makes is just disrespectful. And the teacher who agreed to receive that is either incredibly young and naive (which is understandable if they were desperate for any source of income and didn't bother researching the going rate), or incredibly pathetic with low self-esteem and no self-respect.

Since English teachers unionizing in Korea is impossible due to the temporary nature of the work. There needs to be some sort of an online union, where senior teachers or teachers who worked in Korea 20, 15, 10 years ago can share their experiences with newbies. Maybe even a youtube channel / live stream that interviews all sorts of English teachers where they discuss what their salaries were like, working conditions, cost of living, and ect.... then maybe slowly with more and more youtube videos exposing the truth... the propaganda of "Get RIch in Korea" can be broken!

The minimum wage is hourly, not monthly

Maybe even a youtube channel / live stream that interviews all sorts of English teachers where they discuss what their salaries were like, working conditions, cost of living, and ect.... then maybe slowly with more and more youtube videos exposing the truth... the propaganda of "Get RIch in Korea" can be broken!

Brilliant idea, hangook!
Seriously, how come no one ever thought about uploading videos to YouTube, sharing their experiences living and working in Korea? If I made one, I could be the very first person doing so. This is an exciting new opportunity!

TaLK was 1.5mil for 15 working hours per week.

Absolutely no official deskwarming whatsoever (unless you had no backbone and your school was run by a sociopath)

TaLK was 1.5mil for 15 working hours per week.
Absolutely no official deskwarming whatsoever (unless you had no backbone and your school was run by a sociopath)

The TaLK scholars really did have the best scholarship!!! I totally forgot that they had absolutely 0 desk warming hours! I guess it makes sense though, since they were suppose to be engaging in cultural activities in their free time and it was a teach and learn program.

They stopped getting the 1.5 salary as in the past few years the government started to deduct taxes and health insurance from  their salaries and they ended up with only 1.3 or 1.2 and it was way too low.

1.5 million (plus .4 housing) for 2 hours of work per day is way too low?
That comes out to 30,000 won per hour!
Not at all bad for something intended to be more of a cultural exchange program than a job.

An Epik teacher making 2.7 (plus .4 housing) earns only around 15,500 won per hour. 
Of course, EPIK has a bunch of additional perks which add up nicely, but...

How many EPIK teachers start at 2.7 though?

If they have TALK like qualifications, would it be something closer to 2.1 for their first year?

It sucks they started charging TaLK scholars tax...that's wild. Collecting tax on scholarships!

Korea has literally found a way to start taking the piss out of its ESL teachers.

How many EPIK teachers start at 2.7 though?
If they have TALK like qualifications, would it be something closer to 2.1 for their first year?

Yeah, I was talking about capped pay, which makes the comparison even more in TALK's favour! I don't think it's even possible to start in EPIK at 2.7.
I think it's the 1+ pay level in a few of the provinces (definitely is for gyeongbuk) which you can only get after working in EPIK for a year or 2.
2.1 is pay level 3, which is as low as it's possible to go (except in the MOEs, which I think start at 2.0?). I feel that it would be one's own fault for starting at 3, though: do an online TESL course before signing your contract and you automatically start at pay level 2 which bumps you up .1 million per month. 

It sucks they started charging TaLK scholars tax...that's wild. Collecting tax on scholarships!
Korea has literally found a way to start taking the piss out of its ESL teachers.

They torpedoed the whole programme, so I guess it's all moot now. 

1.5 million (plus .4 housing) for 2 hours of work per day is way too low?
That comes out to 30,000 won per hour!
Not at all bad for something intended to be more of a cultural exchange program than a job.

An Epik teacher making 2.7 (plus .4 housing) earns only around 15,500 won per hour. 
Of course, EPIK has a bunch of additional perks which add up nicely, but...

Did the TaLK scholars ever have a choice as to whether or not they could receive the 400,000 housing allowance?
I believe that they were being housed at homestays with Korean families at first (maybe back in 2008, when I first heard of this program at a university fair back home).

Then from 2010 or 2012 they started to allow the scholars a choice between homestay or a one room apartment that the program chooses for them. Also, since they are mostly housed in rural areas, their housing probably didn’t cost as much as 400,000.

They did do only 3 hours of work per day though with no desk warming with health care / taxes not taken out at first since the pay was just considered a flat out stipend/ scholarship  and not a salary.

If they could indeed request that 400,000 housing allowance, then that does make the come out on top salary wise with 30,000!!!

Maybe that’s why the program got scrapped? They did the calculations and realized it didn’t make sense to pay someone with lower qualifications more than a full time EpIK teacher per hour, but there was no way to scale down benefits and salary as that would make it impossible to survive on in Korea.

I know student scholarships for international grad students are like 800,000 a month flat. But they are starving at the end of the month and need to work a part time job or two to make ends meet.

Oh, no, my bad: insofar as I know, TALKers never got the option to get the .4 in cold hard cash. I just included it because it's kinda the go-to amount when talking about provided housing -- my numbers are all back-of-napkin-scribbles so I figured it would be okay to include it like that.

I liked the idea of a TALK program because it seemed very much a cultural exchange program rather than just a recruiting agency like what EPIK/GEPIK/JLP are.
I guess what with the ever increasing success of hallyu and the rising popularity of all things Korean, the gov figured the program was a bit redundant?
Still, sad to see it go. 

Scholars could definitely get the 400k if they requested it. I know one person who did as she was living with her Korean family (was lucky enough to be placed in the same city as her extended family)…so she just pocketed the 400k as extra cash.

If the scholars didn’t get the 400k, the school (or staff member who owned the apartment/one-room being rented to the scholar through the school) would simply have pocketed the difference between the actual rent (~200k in the countryside) and the 400k.

TaLK was a great program for not just the scholars lol. A lot of people made side income off it.

They should've made the homestay part of the program mandatory. It wouldve emphasized the cultural exchange aspect of the program and weeded out a fair percentage of the people who were there more or less just for employment.

Nah, way too many opportunities for liberties to be taken.

Free English tutor for the kids/parents/extended family etc for example, not to mention the 400k stipend would go to the family.

When I first did TaLK we were given the option of home stay or our own places…if home stay was mandatory, I most probably wouldn’t have joined the program.