Yes I know this may seem rather ridiculous in current conditions with buxibans temporarily closed and zero opportunity for private tutors.
But I have lived through two covid outbreaks in two different countries already. The first was in China, native English teachers in my former tier 2 city were already rather hard to find during that time and by the time CNY reared its head in 2020 most foreigners were running for the hills. Mostly due to a foolish disregard for my personal safety and a girl I decided to stay, but what I observed by the time the education sector was permitted to reopen was interesting.
In China the lockdown ended in late March, by April and the reopening native speakers teaching as private tutors on the side saw their wages go from 200rmb to the rather ridiculous levels of 300-450rmb an hour. It got to the point you’re earning that sort of money and you were just taking taxis to work every day to commute around the city. Why? Simple supply vs demand. You’ve still got the wealthy parents willing to blow money on a babysitter teaching their kids English. But you’ve not got the teachers.
Covid is not a buyers market for TEFL employers. Getting qualified teachers into the country with testing and quarantine is difficult and expensive. Unqualified illegal teachers can’t even get into the country on tourist visas.
If lately you were thinking of asking your boss for another 50-100twd, the near future is probably the time to do it.
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Probably true. My wife is tutoring HK students online for over NT$1000/hr. Plus they send her gift boxes EMS every few weeks. One just came today. 
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This is really interesting because for this month, my company has basically cut everyone’s money whilst still making them teach the hours online. Not much pushback because I guess teachers are worried they won’t have any money if they quit.
Teacher shortage is definitely real, at least in China! Two of my friends got offered bonuses upwards of 6000 RMB, twice, because their companies were scared they were going to get poached by other schools.
As for me, I did manage, after much haggling, to secure the same salary teaching online that I did when I was teaching in person at my buxiban. I consider that a win!
I hope the OP is right, I really do, however most contracts are up in August, I think they will shitcan a lot of teachers, no severance etc…and this after maybe working for 2 months on reduced pay, just enough to bleed people dry so they have less options.
Then September rolls around and they want teachers to return “but the company had a tough financial situation” so we have to pay less. People will be broke and have to accept.
what is truly grating is that when a person goes into business they are taking a risk, when it goes south some expect to unload the problem onto employees, and use this to mitigate said risk.
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Exactly. Employers here don’t want to take any kind of loss. They push the losses to the employees and then act like they are doing them a favor.
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An adult student of mine once told me that her boss told all the employees that he didn’t have the money to pay them and be patient. She waited 2 months and still no pay. I said to her , go to the labor board. She didn’t want to at first but did and got her money. The boss was gaslighting the other employees telling them they were fortunate to work for him so none of them complained. They all lost 4 months salaries when the boss disappeared suddenly one day except for the student who only lost a month pay.
I also suggested she ghost this employer but a lot of workers have this sense of loyalty toward a crap boss.
Yes, gaslighting is a well used tactic. So and so is doing it. They didn’t complain. Everyone has to sacrifice.
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Wait for a shortage to be apparent and then hit them with salary increase.
Right now if the boss starts talking about salary adjustment down remind them that new teachers will be almost impossible to find , tell them about all the people you heard leaving Taiwan right now and if the country opens up again…Which it probably will for schools in a few months…
Smartest thing teachers can do now is go direct to the source…The parents…Start teaching these kids online one to one. I know as a parent I would see wary more value in that especially when there is no babysitting involved.
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That is the point, they didn’t even talk about it. Before, My friend was paid hourly and she had 24 hours a week. Now she has to teach the same 24 hours online, but only get paid for 80 of those hours a month. She always got paid over 100 hours a month in the past. Now she gets less pay and has more prep work. I really don’t know how it is justified when they aren’t returning money to the parents.
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Are there loads of foreign teachers leaving?
It doesn’t matter . You gotta to play the game.
But if you have a link to something like that it makes it real.
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It’s been a while since I taught in buxibans, but my experience of the owners is they look at very short term profits. Pretty much on a monthly basis. I don’t think it keeping teachers or finding new teachers crosses their minds much. They assume they’ll pull out another potato when needed.
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Play upon their fears. It is not as if the entire industry is built upon logic and a quality product. 
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Exactly why I said you can’t hit them for a salary increase until they realise they need to pay it.
Plus schools are genuinely hurting now.
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Indeed. They won’t consider paying more until they haven’t got a foreigner to stand at the front of class. They aren’t at that point yet.
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I started a new topic. Should be near the top still