[quote=“Alien”][quote=“chodofu”]There is already a teacher shortage on Taiwan. Thats why you clowns were hired.
If this post bothers you, yes I am Canadian 
Chou[/quote]
No you’re not! You escaped from the San Diego zoo. 
[/quote]
Yikes, I’ve been found out! Ah well, being a monkey qualifies me to teach right?
Chou
[quote=“chodofu”][quote=“Alien”][quote=“chodofu”]There is already a teacher shortage on Taiwan. Thats why you clowns were hired.
If this post bothers you, yes I am Canadian
Chou[/quote]
No you’re not! You escaped from the San Diego zoo.
[/quote]
Yikes, I’ve been found out! Ah well, being a monkey qualifies me to teach right?
Chou[/quote]
Only if you’ve got a BA in Basket Weaving.
Basket weaving aside, perhaps the better question to ask is how many teachers are NOT coming to Taiwan because of the SARS attack?
I know of one, maybe two who have wisely decided to stay put. There are probably hundreds (?) the world over who thinking along those exact lines.
The combination of a percentage of the teachers here leaving and no new teachers coming over could impact the schools significantly.
It looks like the US$80K tax deduction for US citizens living abroad is about to go the way of the dinosaur. Will this potential double taxation affect your plans for staying abroad? Will it put USians at a competitive disadvantage in that they’ll need to earn a higher salary to live at the same level as foreigners from countries that don’t tax overseas residents? What policies do other countries have? Canada, the UK, Australia, EU countries?
Thank God, though, that they’re cutting the dividend tax. THAT should help out the average American quite a bit. Reaganomics has returned.
Source, please!
Check your favorite online news source. Here are a couple:
cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/05/ … index.html
wndu.com/news/052003/news_19928.php
abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/ap20030516_251.html
Apparently Cheney was needed to break the tied vote in the senate.
sun-sentinel.com/business/lo … ness-front
Well, for the one and probably only time in my life, I hope Trent Lott succeeds in something – making sure the deduction stays.
I think with the number of foreign teachers from my school who are leaving the country to establish their new families (decided upon long before anyone in Taiwan had heard of SARS), and the difficulty in convincing foreigners to come to Taiwan, would it be prudent to ask for a higher salary since I will be working at the same school for a third year and my pay rise including the one for next year is only about $5000/mo. more than what I started out with?
I worry a little since it seems that along with foreigners fleeing to the countries in which they were born, the children who were born overseas are finally getting to use their American, Canadian, Australian, British, Irish, New Zealand passports to flee alongside their teachers. I am positive about the loyalty to my school seeing as my school will probably not suffer much more than having a shorter waiting-list and fewer disappointed potential families waiting to see if their children can get into our school, but for those other schools where there wasn’t much loyalty in the first place, I worry a little bit about them and their teachers. I foresee some weaker schools, especially ones that have pseudo-curiculum that comes a dime a dozen having to close their doors because fleeing families and school closures will cost them their school.
I am not fleeing but taking an extened vaction at the end of the week. Maybe a few months. If this SARS thing last too much longer, I will have to change countries. I was thinking of Russia or Mexico. Argentina had the best pay but that has pretty much dried up.
I am not and will not worry about SARS. I worry only about my school having to take on substandard teachers because they need to fill in spaces for teachers who have decided to not come to Taiwan (that’s what they get for recruiting Canadians…j/k), but my school hires only teachers who have teaching certification and experience back west and I wonder how this dwindling supply of teachers will affect the school in what they accept as viable teaching candidates. I am however, planning to take advantage of this shortage to squeeze in a little more money, perhaps. I think when this SARS thing dwindles down and the media moves on to the next big nail-biter, the schools will pick up again. Just think… a year and a half ago, people were afraid to fly to the US.
I’m job-hunting right now, and if I have to waste any more time with smug shabby little men in shabby little offices who don’t have any actual vacancies right now - but are wasting my time by advertising jobs they don’t have anyway - I shall scream!!
Several schools that have offered me work, or at least implied that they have work to be done, appear to be suffering a distinct lack of students right now. (These are mostly adult schools. I imagine it’s different for kids who have no place else to go during the day.)
So I guess SARS is having at least one negative effect here. Sadly, I don’t believe it’s going to prune away the crap schools, although it may hurt the ones who concentrate on actual teaching rather than marketing.
If and when demand picks up again I guess there may be a shortage of teachers then. A friend of mine tried to book a flight to Europe this weekend, and reports finding prices uncomfortably high due to all the people who (so his travel agent claims) are fleeing Taiwan already.
I think this is mostly going to hurt the organisations that normally recruit from overseas. The only people coming here right now are probably the ones who think the the capitol of Taiwan is Bangkok, and they’ll be on the wrong 'plane anyway!
Maybe Hess etc. will be forced to up the ante for people who are already here and wouldn’t want to work for them otherwise?
Everyone else? Well I was at a High School today that had it’s shortlist down to 5 applicants for one job. They don’t seem to be having much trouble finding teachers, although their package is admittedly pretty good.
I bet the British School is sorry they turned me down now. 
Tell your friend I got a round-trip ticket to London for only NT$26,000… high travel season and all.
Has anyone actually tried to talk up their asking price to see how desparate they are?
They may be saying that enrollment is down to LOWER your salary, but don’t let them lie. Try to get more … then report back here and let us know.
I know a business editor who predicts foreigners’ salaries will skyrocket.
Overall, teaching salaries will not go up because of SARS.
The teachers at the bottom end of the pay scale may get a small increase but I think that in general things will stay pretty much the same.
What could happen is that the kind of teacher coming to Taiwan will change. Perhaps more SA teachers - nothing against SA teachers but they will take more risks in living in Taiwan to earn the money that is available. Maybe some schools will have to get less picky.
A related article in today’s TT:
Language schools may suffer teacher shortage over SARS
I don’t think there will be a teacher shortage. There will always be people willing to risk it all for the “exoticness” of Asia.
I do however think that good, trainable and discipline teachers will be in an even shorter supply as they might have the brains to stay away from a place where 95% of all SARS cases come from hospitals. It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out. I’ll be looking for Kindy work starting in September and will let you know.
Okami
Salaries haven’t gone up in the eleven years since I first came here - why would they go up now ? I noticed in China that there are plenty of fresh young graduates with private incomes willing to work for nothing in China. Whilst that may not be true of Taiwan - there are plenty of people in certain countries overseas who will jump at the chance to earn USD15 an hour in Taiwan.
I think the demand for teachers will fall with the fall in supply of students, and wages will maintain their present equilibrium of around TWD550 an hour for FOBs. Any post-SARS increase in student enrollment will be accompanied by an increase in the supply of teachers from overseas.
Hexuan hit the nail right on the head. I’ve been here for 7 years and have see several “episodes” of teacher shortages. They never cause an increase in salaries.
Oh, and when I arrived the average salary was 500NT/hour. For Canadians the exchange rate was around 19.8 NT to the dollar. Now it’s what? 23? That means those making less than around 600 an hour today are making less than fresh teachers 7 years ago. Mind you the cost of living has dropped since then so it averages out but still starting salaries would have to go up to around 575-600 an hour to match those of 7 years ago.
But they say the wage rates are on the rise - due to the teacher shortage (sars, obviously). Has anyone experienced that yet?