PAY

Right.  Because they can.  So, why wouldn't they?  It doesn't help me that a year in Korea is totally feasible to someone with no experience straight out of uni.  But, it's reality.  And that person does not feel exploited.  A lot of people come here for a year and don't really care if they go home with much savings.  They are here for a different reason.  For some 23-25 year old a year living overseas with a week in Thailand thrown in is a fantastic experience.  They aren't going to take into account people that want less teachers coming in for bargaining power. 

It may be feasible but from my experience even those people are becoming more skeptical. I met people last year who had an interest in K-pop and such and they were complaining about pay from the first or second time I met them and difficulties living in Seoul on 2.0. They both didn't renew. People may be coming for all sorts of reasons but I think people are starting to realize the reality of the pay.

There is (or was) a large pool of people willing to be exploited for low pay and 4-10 classes a day…and yes, I’m using the word exploited to describe what the industry in Korea is doing (and has done in the past decade) to ESL teachers.

lets not be melodramatic lol

People may be coming for all sorts of reasons but I think people are starting to realize the reality of the pay.

Literally hg77 got this ball rolling. Let's all give him thanks and praise.

Literally hg77 got this ball rolling. Let's all give him thanks and praise.

Venit, vidit, vicit.

Without his gentle nudge that ball would have remained firmly stuck at 2.1

Big round of applause for 77.

People may be coming for all sorts of reasons but I think people are starting to realize the reality of the pay.

According to the Korea Consumer Agency, the average price of eight top dining items in Seoul rose by an average of 16.3 percent from the previous year.

https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=350411

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16% increase in just one year? That’s a hell of an increase. Imagine how much food prices have gone up over two years, three years, four years, five years. Overall wages for Koreans are going up, way up. Overall wages for Western English teachers are not going up. Adjusted for inflation they are going down, way down. Meaning if you work at a public school and reached the cap, each year you’ll be getting less and less than you do now.

I am truly grateful hangook77. Keep fighting on all our behalf.
You deserve this moment.

It may be feasible but from my experience even those people are becoming more skeptical. I met people last year who had an interest in K-pop and such and they were complaining about pay from the first or second time I met them and difficulties living in Seoul on 2.0. They both didn't renew. People may be coming for all sorts of reasons but I think people are starting to realize the reality of the pay.

Good.  I hope that becomes the norm.  My point has always been that you can't discount a large segment of the teaching population that contributed to holding back wage increases because your situation was different from theirs.  I can't deem someone exploited because I would feel cheated in their circumstances. 

The people looking for a gap year adventure, along with South Africans still doing much better than they did at home, helped keep wages down. As some would have you believe, it wasn't timid teachers too frightened to speak up about wage increases until Braveheart77 lead the way (I fully expect that to be a meme TA.)

Overall wages for Koreans are going up, way up.

Work for a company and am privy to wages, so I can maybe shed a little light on this. While most of my company's workers did get a raise this year, it's barely keeping up with inflation. The average raise was between 5~7%. Some didn't get a raise at all, which was blamed on the increase in operating costs and expenses. From other people I know personally, the highest raise was ~13%.

This will obviously differ based on company and field, but my company fared well through the pandemic and is on the higher end of pay. Obviously any raise is better than nothing, but still far off keeping up with the expensive reality of living in Korea.

ESL teachers do get absolutely shafted in terms of wages though. But the education industry here is f***ed, hagwons are a scam run by incompetent psychos, and ESL teachers by and large are viewed by the two with disdain at best and at worst seen as transients with nothing to do back home ripe to be exploited for short term gain.

As some would have you believe, it wasn't timid teachers too frightened to speak up about wage increases until Braveheart77 lead the way

Ugh so wrong. He got around 12 upvotes one time. Also he said a ton of people have heard his message and resonated with it. Sorry sweaty he's our king. 

until Braveheart77 lead the way (I fully expect that to be a meme TA.)

Thank you. You delivered again.  Any chance of getting Braveheart77 riding a bike during that monumental battle charge?  I ask a lot, I know. 

I wonder if William Wallace wore L.L. Bean fleece slipper scuffs.

meme

I was hoping for a meme of the executioner whispering in his ear, encouraging him to seek mercy by yelling out "2.1!"

"They may take our severance, but they'll never take our 2.1!"

Thank you. You delivered again.  Any chance of getting Braveheart77 riding a bike during that monumental battle charge?  I ask a lot, I know.

Here you go!

(Also AI'ed "Gay tryst down by the river. Include bicycles." So............. this popped out. Horrifying.

Here you go!

(Also AI'ed "Gay tryst down by the river. Include bicycles." So............. this popped out. Horrifying.

HaHaHaHa, great stuff.

My favorite generation from the wonky online generators

Yes, I have made the point before that teachers who have worked for years get 6 million or more and do very little work.  They pawn it on their juniors.  As for us, if we stayed that number of years, we still wouldn't get a pay raise.  Yet, all the schools say they like having an experienced foreign teacher.  They certainly have the money to pay a bit more.  If they can pay Korean teachers, they can pay us.  I don't expect us to make 6 million won.  But a small 600,000 won hike given how many years since the last pay raise would not be unreasonable. 

They really do pawn it all on their Juniors..... There lazy new Korean teacher at my old school demanded the very brilliant young teacher (whom I absolutely loved to co-teach with) that she give her all of the teaching materials that she used from previous years, and after receiving them, she would criticize all of it and say "oh this is not that great"....while proceeding to do absolutely nothing but nap so much that she can't even pick up her office phone... and is never online on the messenger...
Teachers like these seriously need to be docked half their pay, and start getting 3.0 mill won, and if they don't like it, the government should push them out to early retirement... since that way, if the teachers like doing nothing they can do that at home and get the 3.0 mill without ruining the students' educational opportunities.  Job stability should not mean immunity from all punishment.. teacher performances need to be evaluated more strictly and wages need to be garnished for those that continue to underperform on purpose, and a strict wage garnishing system will discourage those who just want long vacations and job stability from applying.

Honesty, for long term NETs that do a great job and want to stay, there should be a way for them to have the wage cap removed and let their salaries rise with inflation like that of Korean teachers.

my school also threw a me few after-school classes (whether or not they actually exist or if i have to teach them i'll leave unspecified, haha). if i had to guess, i'd imagine some sort of change happened that made them nervous someone higher-up is checking the books enough to at least glance at my schedule.

I had "fake" teacher classes put into my schedule at my last school, so I only had to really teach 19 or 20 classes per week. However, at the new school they won't budge on the hours.. They purposely split on of the grade into higher and lower level so that I could fill up all 22 classes. Sometimes if there is a schedule change they just combine them into one full class and I can have less classes. So I asked the co-teacher if we can just keep the 22 classes on my schedule but always just have combined classes when teaching (this would save my two co-teachers time as well), but they said no and that it's illegal.

I miss my old school, they really understood that things that were officially suppose to be done a certain way, could really be done differently unofficially, and no one had to know :)