Salaries in Southern Taiwan

Hi - I have noticed that salaries outside of Taipei are really low – I saw 2 offers for Tainan and one paid 48K NTD and the other 53K NTD. To people who live there or who have, is Tainan really that much cheaper than Taipei or are these schools just paying an existence wage?

It’s a lot cheaper, for example rent is only 5k and beers at 711 are around 20

Beers for 20ntd? What beers?

He means 30.

Go by hour. Tainan is a better place to live to many compared to kaohsiung and pingtung so a lot of foreign teachers seem to stick around. Pingtung pays higher than kaohsiung on average.

But foreigners that are professional and have a reputation can still expect 1000k an hour. Bigger cities are better based on more market. Have a few friemds still makimg 800 to 1200 an hour doing private lessons. Kaoping seems to be 500 to 800 for a buxiban type thing.

How much cheaper than Taipei would you say it is? for example/… How much would you need to earn in Tainan to have the same standard of living as if you were earning 80k in Taipei?

Western restaurants cost the same, so bear that in mind.

Rent is about 30-40% less I’d say. My 3 bedroom split floor apartment was 17k in Tainan, whereas my 1 and a half bedroom roof house in Taipei was 24k.

I know a lot of long term white expats with comfortable teaching careers making the move to the deep dirty south. With the post secondary education industrial complex booming in Taipei, landlords are splitting bigger apartments into two smaller ones putting big pressure on supply. It’s tough to find anything good in Taipei for under 25k unless you’re willing to push pretty far into the County.

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Tainan rules.

5k is a bit of an exaggeration, with 5k you will get you a small place but you can easily get something big enough and nice for 8k.

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I find the traffic freaking dangerous in Tainan though, I never feel safe on the scooter.

How about Taichung?

It sucks

Because more people (long term expats) want to teach down south, and there is less demand.

Taichung is still a lot more than down South for anything decent (housing). Taiwanese are still moving there, not so to the South since government policy is to turn it into the industrial arsehole of Taiwan to be powered by cheap labour.

Tainan sucks! Don’t even think about coming here, it’s a sh*&hole!
:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Salaries all over Taiwan are low.

I must say even though I enjoy Tainan, I do miss Taipei once in a while. Tainan is relatively small.

Anping district in Tainan feels like holiday all year.

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I worked in Taoyuan last year where my salary was higher. But deep down I was
not too happy with my job assignment because it was a part of the Bilingual
program which is a total farce.

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