I was a little surprised as to why I am staying here after I checked out this site marketingsalaries.com/aquent/
Is this correct?
If so, what makes the opportunities here better.
Please understand, I am not an American. What would I know. 
[quote=āBassmanā]Is this correct?[/quote] no idea
[quote=āBassmanā]If so, what makes the opportunities here better.[/quote] cost of living I guess, except maybe housing depending on where you live in TW ā¦
[quote=āBassmanā]ā¦ I am not an American[/quote] Me neither ā¦
I also had to broaden my inquiry considerably to get any result from this thingy, seems thereās not a lot of variety in the data the salary calculator is based on ā¦
aquent also is a specialist āboutiqueā HR firm with a focus on high end recruiting.
these ācalculatorsā mean little in the real world. if you enjoy your job abd your life and make enough money to pursue what you want i certainly wouldnt be basing decisions to stay or go from taiwan on some calculator i found on the net. 
I have been paying attention to salary surveys lately and was astonished to see similar positions as mine paying a starting salary as much as 3 times as what I make here. The pay and work is better elsewhere. So in my opinion the opportunities for work are better elsewhere but the life I lead here is far more interesting than it would be in the US - at least right now.
I think another consideration is that it is a lot easier to get a job here. Sure, the same job I do here pays $100,000 a year back in Canada, but I would never get a job doing that back home. Iām not saying I couldnāt do it, and maybe even do it better than some that do have the job, but they wouldnāt hire me. In my hometown, even crappy jobs regularly get 100 applicants for every position.
I like to use the salary.com website. I can not vouch for accuracy, but it alwasy says I am making a little bit (2-5%) more than I am worth, which makes the work day a tad more bearableā¦
I think another consideration is that it is a lot easier to get a job here. Sure, the same job I do here pays $100,000 a year back in Canada, but I would never get a job doing that back home. Iām not saying I couldnāt do it, and maybe even do it better than some that do have the job, but they wouldnāt hire me. In my hometown, even crappy jobs regularly get 100 applicants for every position.[/quote]
precisely. āback homeā the competition is far more fierce and no matter how much you think back home appreciates overseas experience - they dont.
[quote=ābababaā]I think another consideration is that it is a lot easier to get a job here. Sure, the same job I do here pays $100,000 a year back in Canada, but I would never get a job doing that back home. Iām not saying I couldnāt do it, and maybe even do it better than some that do have the job, but they wouldnāt hire me. In my hometown, even crappy jobs regularly get 100 applicants for every position.[/quote] Why is Canadaās economy so poor that they do not have enough jobs? I also heard that Australia has a poor economy as someone was referring to all of the Australian economic refugees. Is there also a job shortage in Oz?
Bollocksā¦ The unemployment rate in Oz is at an all time low, no shortage of jobs per se, but its mostly in the unskilled labour market and retail. As for a poor economy - again hogs wash - the Oz economy is and has been one of the best performing of the OECD economies for the past 4 or 5 years.
[quote=āAWOLā]Bollocksā¦ The unemployment rate in Oz is at an all time low, no shortage of jobs per se, but its mostly in the unskilled labour market and retail. As for a poor economy - again hogs wash - the Oz economy is and has been one of the best performing of the OECD economies for the past 4 or 5 years.[/quote]Wow, you seemed to get really angry by my post. Ny statement was more of a question I wasnāt trying to imply anything bad about Australia. I had heard other people on Forumosa refer to themselves as āAustralian economic refugeesā.
nah not angry at all sorry if i came across that way - i am in the middle of exam prep and coming here for my hourly diversions.
australians have a long history of leaving australia for ābetterā jobs elsewhere. all the good jobs are snapped up by the old boys network and the over achievers. that leaves very few highly skilled āknowledgeā worker type jobs. as such, we aussies leave our home country in search of jobs overseas. unfrotaunately when we return to oz we find that overseas experience isnt as valued as we hopedā¦ and we return back overseasā¦ viscious cycle.
again - sorry if i was snappy.
[quote=āAWOLā]
all the good jobs are snapped up by the old boys network and the over achievers. that leaves very few highly skilled āknowledgeā worker type jobs. [/quote]
Which makes Australia different from every other place in the world exactly how?
[quote=āAWOLā]nah not angry at all sorry if I came across that way - I am in the middle of exam prep and coming here for my hourly diversions.
australians have a long history of leaving australia for ābetterā jobs elsewhere. all the good jobs are snapped up by the old boys network and the over achievers. that leaves very few highly skilled āknowledgeā worker type jobs. as such, we aussies leave our home country in search of jobs overseas. unfrotaunately when we return to oz we find that overseas experience isnt as valued as we hopedā¦ and we return back overseasā¦ viscious cycle.
again - sorry if I was snappy.[/quote]
Sounds like Canada as well. Except with Canada its the Bay Street crowd who dominate business with and Ottawa (with its rampant cronyism) for government. No wonder the ābrain drainā is hurting the countryās HR. I hope it gets even worse. 
The best city for meritocratic folk bar-none is Calgary. Most white-collar, professional workforce in the whole country with a can-do business attitude. The āAlberta Advantageā ā damn rights.
I donāt think itās that Canadaās aeconomy is bad; itās just that it is not growing quickly like the economy of a developing country. Itās a trade-off: itās easy to get a low-paying job in a developing country; hard to get a job in a developed country, but if you do the salary will be good. It depends on the area in Canada, too ā my hometown is not exactly an economic hotbed.
Heh - that was me. I say that mainly because the tax rates in Oz are cripplingly high for anyone wanting to earn a decent amount. Average earnings for an Australian are AU$49,000/year (about USD$38,000). Above AUD$58,000/year, the marginal tax rate is 43.5% (including Medicare), rising to 48.5% over AUD$70,000. There is no joint filing - a married couple pay the same tax as two single people. Then thereās GST on top of that for purchases. I donāt know about you guys but that means that earn anything above the average in Oz, and a lot of it goes to the government. Of course, the counterargument is that Australia is a pretty nice place to live, so you donāt need that much money 
The Australian economy as such has been going great guns over the last 10 years or so.
Heh - that was me. I say that mainly because the tax rates in Oz are cripplingly high for anyone wanting to earn a decent amount. Average earnings for an Australian are AU$49,000/year (about USD$38,000). Above AUD$58,000/year, the marginal tax rate is 43.5% (including Medicare), rising to 48.5% over AUD$70,000. There is no joint filing - a married couple pay the same tax as two single people. Then thereās GST on top of that for purchases. I donāt know about you guys but that means that earn anything above the average in Oz, and a lot of it goes to the government. Of course, the counterargument is that Australia is a pretty nice place to live, so you donāt need that much money
The Australian economy as such has been going great guns over the last 10 years or so.[/quote]
Australia sounds a lot like Canada. Down to the terms Medicare and GST.
Like Canada, where similar taxation brackets do tend to take quite a chunk out of your paycheck, I still am pretty undecided about whether that is enough to be living out of the country. I love living there, and if thatās what it takes, sometimes, I think it still maybe worth it. Then again, living in Taipei is such a contrast to the wide open spaces and the beautifully clean air/water.
It this sounds like Iām homesickā¦I am.