I have been living in Taiwan over 1.5 years and after being teaching for a while I was recently offered a position as a white collar worker in a Trading Company. My current salary at the school is aroun 60000 (part time, around 20h a week). I am really interested in this new job as it would help me to introduce myself into a new working field. My duties would have to do with trading issues (some customers), personal assistant (travel with boss and language support in his trips) and also some language assistant (other languages than English).
He asked me to think about the offer and say how much do I want to be paid. Depending on this will be the decision. The job would be M-F full time, travelling with the company once a month (expenses for this on the company of course!)…
I read that white collar foreigners are required to be paid at least 48000, but I dont even know if I qualify for this … whats the average pay for a foreigner in a similar job in Taiwan… many taiwanese friends have jobs at offices and they do not earn much more than 30000 which is less than half of what I can earn in my school… any suggestions, comments, ideas, or help about this??
If 48000 is enough for you, then tell the potential employer that that is the minimum he can pay you and then he can decide. Apart from salary, there are other limits on companies employing foreigners, including the number of employees, capital and turnover. The employer will also have to convince the authorities that this is a job that could not be done equally well by a Taiwanese citizen. The potential employer should first make sure, by enquiring with the Bureau of Labor Affairs, that he or she is entitled to employ foreigners at all.
While you might not be a 100% productive efficient employee from the get-go, you will over time grow to provide a fair bit of value to your boss.
I would shoot for 60 initially, with increases as you prove your worth for the company. The NT$48k should be the bare minimum and a temporary one at that.
Make sure to get extra vacation time and good travel allowances built into the job.
The silver lining for you is 2 fold.
First of all you will increase your experience and gain skills which will be of value if you return home to your native country. Moreover, the skills gained in the job will mean that it will be easier for you to move on to better paying jobs with higher responsilities in the future.
Secondly, you will be working more, so you will have less time to spend your money.
If the job is not for you, don’t despair, as it’s never hard to return to teaching.
Don’t forget to discuss your bonus! Typically a minimum of one or two months a year, but obvioulsy more depending on your performance and how the company is doing.
No need to drop below what you are earning now. They should understand that, if not, then I;d question the offer It sounds like you are bringing unique skills. Exploit them.
Thanks everyone for this suggestions, they really make me more confident now! I was a bit scared to ask them too much…
It seems they are really interested so I hope all goes ok!,
Another important thing to think about is to carve out a niche in the company that you completely control and makes u irreplaceable. Then work on improving the value of this position to your boss. Build a very strong relationship to all the customers, and build a huge network. Then you have the power of leverage over your boss. If he doesn’t pay you fairly, you can walk, and even take customers with you.
The only thing I think I could add to that soundly advice is to be sure to get pictures of your boss, or your boss’s wife in flagrante delicto. Ideally they’d not be together in those pics.
I worked at a hopeless Taiwan manufacturing company, and the boss was a prick.
He was Christian, and liked to talk about those values a lot. OK, we went to China, where he spent a fair amount of the time anyways. Once there, he picked up a girl at a Baijing bar, and banged her senseless upstairs while I was conducting negotiations on his behalf in te lobby. (He was a quick banger, as he rarely spend more than 15 minutes from going up to coming back down; I timed this as I was very new in the job, and really wanted someone knowledgable around).
OK, he tried to bribe me with offers of girlfriends, hookers, and what have you not, for the duration of the trip. (I refused)
I kept my peace. however later on a pic of him in the act woudl have done a fair bit of good for my position.
My advice: You’re looking for something else than teaching, so don’t delay what will happen anyway, and take the risk. If it doesn’t work out, you can always go back to teaching.