Salaries in Taiwan

Business Money
41

Way off about foreigners with teaching credentials working in elementary schools.

Here’s part of the MOE pay scale for different qualifications (and years teaching in the Taiwanese system – years elsewhere don’t count):

0-1 year
PhD 70,895NT/month
MA 67,925NT/month
BA 60,890NT/month

11-12 years
PhD 88,755NT/month
MA 84,290NT/month
BA 75,770NT/month

It’s for an 11 month contract, with a performance bonus of up to one month’s pay. It’s all tax free. There’s also a 5,000NT/month housing allowance, 10,000NT/month if you have a spouse or kids.

As for TAS, I don’t know, but I think 200,000NT/month would be extravagent to say the least. That’s $80,000/year, and it would be tax free. Foreign teachers would be flying over by the jumbo jet load every day to apply for jobs there if that were the case. Hell, every bum buxiban teacher in this country would be getting a fake degree or going back home to get teaching credentials to apply for such a job. That figure of 200,000NT/month would greatly exceed anything most people, not just teachers (but especially teachers!) would be getting in the West once you worked out the implications of not paying tax. Add the lower cost of living and it would be serious money that would be even better than the Persian Gulf (the highest salary I’ve seen advertised there was in Saudi Arabia and that was $5,000/month tax free plus other perks). I’m guessing that at most, the pay is about 130,000NT/month, but probably something more like 100,000NT/month, perhaps with a few perks such as a housing allowance.

Seriously, when people – be they foreigners or Taiwanese – start throwing these numbers out, do they even try to base them on reality?[/quote]
Well, US…Jesus, I hate to burst your favorite bubble, but I live in SE Virginia, USA, and I can’t swing a friggin’ cat without hitting a kindergarten teacher or another teacher of one stripe or another who doesn’t pull down NT$180,000/yr*. At least that, and many make considerably more than that I believe (so they say - and spend IME, at least the females I know).

Of course they’re visited by the taxman, but are you sure your US figures are grounded in something more substantial than whatever that is you use?

-Edit-per month, sorry. $NT180,000/mo or roughly $US1,250/wk.[/quote]
We live outside Seattle, WA.
My daughter goes to public school.
Her teacher (she is in the 5th grade, so the kids are 10-11 years old) has been teaching for 26 years now. He has an MA.
Teacher salaries are public record, and I looked it up. Assuming he’s in the middle of his paygrade, he makes NT$240,000/month, plus full pension, plus full health care coverage for him and his family. School is open 180 days a year, so his working year is 1440 hours (though he is allowed 5 sick days that aren’t factored in here). That works out to NT$2000/hr. If he’s at the top of the paygrade, add 30% and he would make about 40% more if he was working for a private school.

Many teachers here also have summer jobs; this particular teacher does private tutoring for NT$900/hr, about 20 hours a week, so his ANNUAL total is NT$3-4 million, depending on where he falls on the public-school payscale. I haven’t heard of any schools in Taiwan paying that much.

*It is worth noting that our school district’s teachers are the best-paid in our state. Our community taxes itself to pay for more teachers (reducing class sizes), and to add to their salaries directly. As a result, we also have the highest number of teachers with more than 10 years’ experience and advanced degrees.

42

That’s a really important note! Last year, as a teacher in AR, I grossed $36,000 US, (bottom of the scale for MA holders), and took home slightly more than half of that each month because of the HIGH costs of health insurance and the tax man. It was in a rural, impoverished area of AR, and not all of the teachers in the district, or even in the charter school (where I worked), were qualified! Turn over was very high, and some real jerks were in charge of things simply because they were the ones who’d been there longest.

My friend’s husband has been a teacher in a different AR town for more than 12 years and still doesn’t make $50,000 (he has a BA).

Anyway, these discussions about salaries compared to the US don’t make a lot of sense. Cost of living is different, and each State will have it’s own pay policies and issues. As you can see–AR is NOT WA.

In fact, one of the best places to go and teach in AR is another rural town down at the south end of the delta–because they’ve got an innitiative that if your kid graduates from four years of high school there–the town will pay for four years of University study for your child–any school he or she can get into. Pay is still crap there, and living conditions are still very rural, but competition is pretty fierce for jobs there now and there is some good teaching talent–and almost no turnover. But for most of you, it still would make no sense to go there to try to get a job.

Different people need different things. Teaching will NEVER pay in AR because there isn’t the tax revenue to pay for it, and not enough people there value it enough to pay more for it. There are still families there who hunt for FOOD, not for sport. Still kids who take time off school to help with planting and harvesting, or hog slaughtering.

*Sorry, I guess I’ve gone off on a little rant here. *My numbers are US$.

43

That’s an amazing range of incomes for teachers in the U.S. I’d been basing my figures on those of housecat and others who have told me similar figures. I had no idea some teachers in the U.S. make decent money.

44

My aunt and uncle just retired from teaching in NY State (in a teeny tiny town about an hour from Plattsburg) and by the time they retired, they were each making close to $90,000 a year. She was an elementary school teacher and he was a Physical Education teacher who also coached soccer and baseball.

45

The Liberty Times’s headline story was on salary information released by the government.

Taiwan had just over 8 million employees who made an average of NT$34,431 per month in salary, overtime pay, commissions, bonuses, and tips. That’s NT$688 more than last year’s figure but less than the average earnings in 2007 and 2008.

280,000 people make less that NT$15,000 per month.
757,000 people made between NT$15,000 and NT$20,000.

That means there are over 1 million people with jobs that pay less than NT$20,000 per month. That’s an increase of 200,000 people making less than NT$20,000 per month since 2008.

44 percent of Taiwan’s workers make less than NT$30,000 per month.

Taiwan’s economy is thriving. Its working people are not.

46

[quote=“Feiren”]The Liberty Times’s headline story was on salary information released by the government.

Taiwan had just over 8 million employees who made an average of NT$34,431 per month in salary, overtime pay, commissions, bonuses, and tips. That’s NT$688 more than last year’s figure but less than the average earnings in 2007 and 2008.

280,000 people make less that NT$15,000 per month.
757,000 people made between NT$15,000 and NT$20,000.

That means there are over 1 million people with jobs that pay less than NT$20,000 per month. That’s an increase of 200,000 people making less than NT$20,000 per month since 2008.

44 percent of Taiwan’s workers make less than NT$30,000 per month.

Taiwan’s economy is thriving. Its working people are not.[/quote]

The headline I saw said the average monthly salary in Taiwan is now more than NT$44,000, a record high. Are we talking about the same story?

47

[quote=“Incubus”][quote=“Feiren”]The Liberty Times’s headline story was on salary information released by the government.

Taiwan had just over 8 million employees who made an average of NT$34,431 per month in salary, overtime pay, commissions, bonuses, and tips. That’s NT$688 more than last year’s figure but less than the average earnings in 2007 and 2008.

280,000 people make less that NT$15,000 per month.
757,000 people made between NT$15,000 and NT$20,000.

That means there are over 1 million people with jobs that pay less than NT$20,000 per month. That’s an increase of 200,000 people making less than NT$20,000 per month since 2008.

44 percent of Taiwan’s workers make less than NT$30,000 per month.

Taiwan’s economy is thriving. Its working people are not.[/quote]

The headline I saw said the average monthly salary in Taiwan is now more than NT$44,000, a record high. Are we talking about the same story?[/quote]

I think you saw Taipei City’s figures. There is a pretty big income gap in Taiwan between different areas , for example Tainan County is 30,000 NTD average. I know it is a similar situation in many other counties too. Plenty of factory workers work on the minimum wage, approx 18,000 NTD/mth. As far as I know pay levels are still below 2007/2008 which weren’t good anyway. Then there has been a big increase in contract workers, that has affected the pay of those lower down as they are not entitled to benefits and get laid off when things get quiet.
In addition most high earners in Taiwan make their money from investments, not salaries.
So although the economy has been doing well it has not really trickled down to the bottom level, I call it the hidden ‘shame of Taiwan’. The salaried workers here get screwed in myriad ways, from contributing most to the tax base and medical insurance system to the unpaid overtime and poor social benefits.

What one needs to look at is the median figure (as Feiren illustratrated the spread of wages is much more indicative of the situation), not the average. The average of any financial number never tells you very much! Down with averages!

48

I moved a lot of off-topic willy-jousting to the temp-forum. I hope this didn’t inconvenience anyone, except me.

49

Don’t worry, there’s more where that came from. :raspberry:

50

Edit - should have read the thread before posting :doh:

51

middle class would be those $50,000 - $70,000 annually

52

I was interviewed in London for a teaching position at TES in February. They offered NT$95000 per month + monthly housing allowance of NT$45000. Didn’t get the job though; gutted as I loved living in Taipei last time I was there.

53

I have had many jobs in Taiwan, all are considered lower level (waiter, kitchen worker, dish washer, gas station, clothing store employee, telemarketer, janitor, karaoke place, night market worker, “day” market worker, regular store employee, etc). Most of the time the hourly wage is 90-100 NT. ONCE IN A WHILE the wage is 109 nt (minimum wage) and at drinks stores you’re more likely to get 85 nt/hour. Sometimes you get as low as 75 nt/hour but that’s not common.

54

All of those numbers are well below the legal minimum…

focustaiwan.tw/news/asoc/201312300006.aspx

55

She knows that already Hok, she’s telling people of the stark reality on the ground, many employers pay less than minimum wage!
Sometimes they just pay under the table, other times they use the usual tricks, clawing back money from your wages in ‘deductions’ and ‘fines’.

56

Brother, now that’s a sweet deal.