I’m wondering what people consider their salaries to be in Taiwan and Taipei specifically. What does a lower class person make here. What does a middle/ upper middle class person make hear, and finally what does an upper class person make hear. Any ideas. It’s possible that this is debatable, but I’m sure you all have some rough estimates.
I would say that in Taipei:
$25,000 is low
$45,000 is average
$80,000 is high
But that doesn’t really reflect what it costs to live in Taipei. I’d say that if you make less than NT$60,000 in Taipei you are poor. NT$60K-$100K is needed to get by, and over $100K is needed to be really comfortable.
That’s why lots of people earning the relatively high salaries in Taipei live in Taipei County.
I could be way off, but my wild guesses -
Local restaurant worker: NT$30,000/month
Profesional office workers NT$50-80,000/month
Big corporate CEO/CFO/GM/corrupt politician or corrupt banker: NT$2-3 million/month
Minimum wage workers make anywhere from NT12,000 - NT20,000’ish a month depending on hours.
I want to say minimum wage is [color=#FF0000]NT95[/color] an hour, I know its under NT100.
My wife’s sister is fairly high up in her company and she breaks over NT100,000 a month plus bonuses.
*Edit
NT95 an hour is minimum wage
I should have mentioned that I meant office workers.
A restaurant worker might make NT$30K per month if she worked 12 hours a day, six days a week. Not uncommon. Most restaurant workers are paid hourly. NT$120 is good, NT$150 is on the high end. From comments on blogs, it sounds like Alleycat’s pays its wait staff NT$95 an hour. You’d need to work 13 hours a day six days a week to make 30K.
Minimum wage is NT$17,280 per month or NT$95 per hour.
Just out of curiosity, what does the average English teacher make here? My Chinese teacher said in class today that English teachers were making NT$100k/month… (with a little tone of resentment in her voice)
I told her I thought that was waaaay more than they were getting paid but I dont teach so I dont really know for sure
[quote=“Lo Pan”]Just out of curiosity, what does the average English teacher make here? My Chinese teacher said in class today that English teachers were making NT$100k/month… (with a little tone of resentment in her voice)
I told her I thought that was waaaay more than they were getting paid but I don’t teach so I don’t really know for sure[/quote]
Depends what kind of English teacher. Foreigners teaching at TAS make much more than this (200k I guess), foreigners with foreign teaching credentials who are teaching at elementary schools probably do make about 100k. When I was teaching English though (buxiban, high school via contract with local language school) I was getting NT$600 an hour. Do the math: to make 100K a month you’d need to cram 40 hours of actual teaching into a week. Not that easy (that’s not to say I never did it; it just wasn’t easy).
EDIT: I do think it’s important to impress upon your Chinese teacher that even the foreigner scum who are making 100K a month aren’t getting many (any) benefits out of it: no labor insurance, no retirement contributions, no job security, no year-end bonus…
The numbers quoted are about right for Taipei, less for other areas of Taiwan. A lot of wealthier people in Taiwan depend on their investments, stocks, property etc or have their own businesses. Salaries max out much lower than the West.
Ok, I feel like typing so bear with me…
Currently I make NT600 an hour. 3 month contracts on all classes and one on ones. I get a NT50 raise after every 3 months.
I only made NT14,000 my first month back and it had me worried. However, playing the “game”, becoming friends with my managers, I am going to break NT50,000 this month (this is my 3rd month back).
I work 5 nights a week, have 2 different set classes and 3 one on ones currently. My one on ones are twice a week and 3 of my classes are on Saturday.
If I pack my Sunday once my Saturday is full, I can pull close to NT70k for working part time.
Some might not think its a lot of money but my family is doing great. My wife is making NT43,000 a month salary teaching at Future Heir, so technically, she is the one with the “real job”. Me, I get to spend all day with my son (except for Saturday) and go to work at night. To me, that’s priceless and one of the reasons why I decided to move my family back to Taiwan.
However, I use to work at a kindy in 2002 and made NT60k a month but didn’t like it at all.
Yeah, like the “professional” landlords whose only job is to collect rent from their tenants every month. Nothing like a hard day’s work. 
[quote=“Savvon”]Some might not think its a lot of money but my family is doing great. My wife is making NT43,000 a month salary teaching at Future Heir, so technically, she is the one with the “real job”. Me, I get to spend all day with my son (except for Saturday) and go to work at night. To me, that’s priceless and one of the reasons why I decided to move my family back to Taiwan.
[/quote]
Yup, priceless, like the credit card ad. Good for you, and your son. :bravo:
[quote=“Mother Theresa”]I could be way off, but my wild guesses -
Local restaurant worker: NT$30,000/month
Profesional office workers NT$50-80,000/month
Big corporate CEO/CFO/GM/corrupt politician or corrupt banker: NT$2-3 million/month[/quote]
Do typical office workers really make that much?
I was reading this article in the Apple Daily today and it said that of the office workers (上班族) they interviewed, 31 percent have an iPhone and of those people who have an iPhone, 88% make less than 30k per month.
When I was teaching at buxiban, I was making 750NT/hour with about 35 teaching hours a week. Didn’t seem too hectic of a schedule. I also did get health insurance and 30,000NT bonus every year for signing another 1 year contract. Wasn’t a bad deal.
[quote=“alidarbac”][quote=“Mother Theresa”]I could be way off, but my wild guesses -
Local restaurant worker: NT$30,000/month
Profesional office workers NT$50-80,000/month
Big corporate CEO/CFO/GM/corrupt politician or corrupt banker: NT$2-3 million/month[/quote]
Do typical office workers really make that much?
I was reading this article in the Apple Daily today and it said that of the office workers (上班族) they interviewed, 31 percent have an iPhone and of those people who have an iPhone, 88% make less than 30k per month.[/quote]
Entry level office workers usually make around 30,000 a month. I would say the more experienced one make more like 40-50k a month.
I’m not sure what MT means by ‘professional office worker’. A mid-level executive at an ad agency might make 70K. A futures trader with the title of xiangli makes a salary of NT$80K. But I think your average office lady would be lucky to make NT$45K.
Actually big CEO/CFO types rarely make more than $1 million a month. A CEO for foreign firm selling technical equipment probably makes NT$400K per month. A high level insurance person might make about the same. At 36 top tech companies the top corporate executives (usually doubling as directors) made an average of NT$10 million a year in total compensation. That’s less than $1 million a month.
Of course the owners of these companies make far more as do the many, many people who live off their land and stock investments. You can see that from this article in Apple Daily about the wealthiest neighborhoods in Taiwan. As you would expect, Taipei has the top two (jingzhong and Dongchang) in eastern Taipei. Residents there reported an average household income of NT$10 million. The story attributes that to the many doctors, lawyers, and business executives living there in addition to the super wealthy like the Wang family. It mentions in passing that the business executive earn salaries of NT$500K. That would be NT$6 million a year, so another $4 million is coming from investment income.
The sixth wealthiest neighborhood in Taiwan is Tianhouli in Tainan city where household’s reported an average income of NT$4 million per year. Most of that is coming from rent
How wealth works in Taiwan is even more clear in Hsinchu . Average household income in Keyuanli is NT$3.6 million per year. The report says that most people in Keyuan are local residents who can make about NT$1.5 million in rental income a year. What pushes up income is the 50 or 60 Science Park entrepreneurs who are live there on “CEO St.” and have net worth of several hundred million to several billion. But note that their actual taxed income only puts average household income up to NT$3 million a year.
Well explained Feiren, as income from non-salaries sources is often hidden overseas or not well tracked…it is hard to get a true figure. Suffice to say that very few would get rich on a salary in Taiwan. Taiwan doesn’t really tax income on investments or stock trading so the money is pushed that way, while most of the tax revenue comes from salaried workers.
Entry level office work is 20 something K usually, even in Taipei I’d say. You might get 40 something K if you are good at your job and got some experience, 60-80k if you are a mid level jingli/supervisor. Military and police get paid better.
Yea, that is helpful/interesting, Feirin. I agree, but . . .
NT$10 million/yr is roughly US$300K-$350K/yr. Does that article make clear if that’s total compensation or just base salary? I would expect options and bonuses would easily equal or exceed base salary for most of them. And, we used to have a superstar, US-trained/educated CFO in our leading Taiwan tech firm whom I always assumed earned about US$1 million/yr (total package). Again, that’s something of a wild guess, but if that was anywhere near correct, that works out to roughly NT$30M/yr or NT$2.5M/month. Admittedly, we’re one of the bigger companies and he was a real hotshot, but still, I’d be surprised if the total package is just US$300K-$350K/yr for the CEOs of Acer, Asus, Compal, Compaq, Hon Hai, HTC, TSMC, Tatung, Formosa Plastic, Delta Electronics, etc.
My understanding when I was in Taipei was that a Bank Manager earned about NT$80k a month but that they were usually weakthy because of all the hong bao such a position could generate.
As a director in a foreign insurance company I made about US$250K a year in Taipei including lving allowances etc. I paid 0% tax as I was not officially there and yet was not in HK enough to pay any tax there either ------happy days.
I’d like to point out I am now self employed and poor, incase anyone is jelaous and wants to kill me!
Do you have a link for that? I’d like to read it.