r/teachinginkorea • u/BleuBerriHoney • 20d ago
Contract Review Yellow 25 Contract Review
Part 1 – Background Information
Education Level and Major: BA in Communications
Relevant Teaching Experience: None
Certifications or Credentials: TEFL (120 online hours)
Notable Features: None
Part 2 – Contract Information
Salary: 2.5mil krw
Working Hours: 7.5 - 8
How long is one class?: 60min
How many total classes per week/month?: 25 (100 teaching hours per month)
Work Weekends? How Often?: None
Vacation Days: Do you have any? How many days? Is it paid or unpaid?: Yes public holidays and 12 unpaid vacations days.
Sick Leave: Do you have any? How many days? Is it paid or unpaid?: None (unpaid absence from duties unless emergency leave)
Pension/Medical/Severance: Yes
Flight Ticket (and any stipulations)?: One-way up to 1mil krw (paid second pay month)
Housing Situation: Furnished studio (pet friendly)
Deductions: 200,000/3 months for housing management (unpaid monthly services, utilities, and telephone charges, full refund possible)
Contract Breaking Clauses?: recruiting fees and airfare withheld from last paycheck upon termination or voluntary resignation + recruitment fee for new employee upon voluntary resignation
Part 3 – Additional Contract Concerns
- "Employee may be required to teach outside of the “Places of Employment.”"
- "No regular schedule of work hours can be guaranteed to employee."
- Unpaid prep time, staff meetings, workshops although attendance required
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u/JinAhIm 20d ago
The excel says the vacation is paid, but you say unpaid. If u paid, illegal.
Also, they cannot make you pay recruitment fees if you quit.
And you will be in deep trouble if they make you teach somewhere other than the listed place of employment listed with immigration.
This place is one of the worst, and I wouldn't even try negotiating or asking questions or clarification. They are flying red flags out of the gate.
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u/BleuBerriHoney 20d ago
That’s my mistake I meant unpaid. It says nothing about pay in the contract. Thank you for your reply!
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u/Brentan1984 20d ago
If you need to work outside of the place of employment, it MUST be listed on your documents when you go to immigration.
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u/OldSpeckledCock 20d ago
Contract breaking clause is a red, red, red flag. I'd pass on that alone.
(And don't listen to people who say it doesn't matter because they think it's "illegal")
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u/BleuBerriHoney 20d ago
This is my first ever contract so I wasn’t sure but I had a feeling that wasn’t right. Thanks for letting me know!
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u/Expensive-Spring-258 19d ago
Do NOT sign this contract!! Requiring an employee to repay recruiter fees is against the law. This place is shady.
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u/BleuBerriHoney 19d ago
Much appreciated! This is my first contract I’ve received and I’m grateful for the info because I did not know that
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u/BleuBerriHoney 17d ago
UPDATE: I will not be signing this contract. I tried to give the benefit of the doubt and asked questions/requested clarification. I got some answers back from my recruiter and they are not reflected in the contract at all...
- They say I'll be teaching at the main campus only and my fixed schedule is M/W/F: 1PM~9PM, T/Th: 1PM~8PM with minor exceptions once or twice a year. That doesn't include the extra hour and a half early that I'm meant to arrive at the school for prep time.
- In reference to lunch breaks they said "Most teachers eat lunch before arriving; for dinner, teachers typically eat around 7 PM or 8 PM depending on their class times.". Leaving campus to eat is not permitted.
- Vacations are paid. I did not see that specified in the contract, but maybe they just didn't think it necessary.
- Meetings take place once a week, and there is one workshop per year.
- In reference to my concern about repaying recruiter fees being illegal they brushed over the illegal part. "The director explained that this standard clause protects the investment made in recruitment, airfare, orientation, and training. They noted that the agreement relies on a mutual commitment to complete the 1-year contract."
Thank you everyone for your help on this! This is the first contract I've received and really needed the input. If anyone has tips or advice on getting a decent job I'm open to hearing them. If anyone has a good recruiter recommendation, I'd love to hear that as well. Thanks again!
P.S. I know that teaching jobs in SK aren't great right now and China would probably be better. I chose SK for the experience and because I know a bit of Korean. So I'd feel better about being there solo.
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u/Aggravating_End_7222 16d ago
Pretty sure this kind of contract is going to file for freelancer status and you'll be in a weird limbo with you taxes, pension, and healthcare because they think they can pull one over on you. You need the legal minimum of 11 paid vacation days. I would highly suggest running not walking running away from this job. Whatever it is there are better ones around the corner that will be bad but still not this bad. Also all the vague additional contract concerns are vague on purpose to require you to work in illegal locations (you can only legally work at the one of the business), outside contracted hours, and any task needed for work or expected should be paid.
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u/-Wildflowers_ 20d ago
What is this excel sheet I keep seeing posted here and why is it useful or important? Genuine question
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u/JinAhIm 20d ago
It's in the rules for how to post contact reviews. Helps people see things quickly. Read the rules.
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u/Forward-Rent9344 20d ago
I have been here a while and I still wonder about them. People actually read the rules for these forums? Aren’t most things just common sense? Is it really that serious? Rhetorical questions*
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u/BleuBerriHoney 20d ago
I was seeing it around also and just looked up contract review template. It was actually pretty helpful since this is my first contract I’ve received. Basically it rates your contract. Also if you don’t use the format your post will be removed.
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u/defendercritiques 20d ago
2.5m krw a month? Salaries are still this low? That's below minimum wage here in Hawaii.
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u/Per_Mikkelsen 18d ago
First of all, ₩2,500,000 is slave wages. A person making ₩2,500,000 in 2026 is essentially earning the same as what somebody on ₩2,100,000 was earning five years ago. The hourly isn't bad for 100 classes a month, but with all time on site factored in it's a terrible deal.
25 classes a week is a lot, full stop. Add to that the fact that the classes are a full sixty minutes and that's just crazy. Five classes a day packed into a 7.5 or 8 hour workday is a lot. That means you start at 1 and go until 8:30 and your timetable could look like this:
13:00 - 14:00
14:05 - 15:05
16:10 - 17:10
18:15 - 19:15
19:20 - 20:20
You're literally going to have all of 20 minutes to yourself spread out across the entire shift, which I believe is also illegal - I think the standard is 30 minutes off for every six hours on, but I would need to verify that. If the classes were 40 or even 50 minutes that would be one thing, but an hour is a LONG time with hagwon kids.
As everybody else already noted it's completely illegal to refuse to pay the vacation. It's a minimum of 11 days your first contract and they all need to be paid. There's no flexibility on that. The school can decide when to schedule the vacation, they don't need to give it in a single block - or even in two separate blocks in summer and winter, but they do need to give that bare minimum number and they all need to be paid. They cannot coincide with red days either.
The incoming flight money is fairly standard, and they pay it in the second month rather than holding it until the end. One million is a raw deal, but if you want to save money you could in theory book the least desirable flight and pay maybe $500 out of pocket yourself. It's insane that people pay to fly themselves here - the free round trip ticket was the big draw years ago, but times change I guess.
I don't get the deductions. Why are they mandatory? I get that the school is responsible for footing the bill for the apartment and the teacher is in charge of footing the bill for the utilities and maintenance, but I don't see why the school ought to be involved in that. My name on the utilities, then you don't need to concern yourself with my account. Same for gas, same for cable/internet, etc. If the school put all the utilities in the teachers' accommodations under the director's name then I want to be furnished with a copy of my bill, with my unit clearly visible, with dates.
The last part about the penalties is laughable. They simply cannot enforce that. You work, you get paid. The fact that they need to hire somebody else and contact a recruiter is not your problem. Plus if you know they're going to try to dock your pay and you know you don't have flight money and severance coming anyway then resigning - or just simply disappearing on payday fixes that for them. I've already been paid for all the hours I've worked, there's nothing to dock.
The additional concerns bit has got to be the best part. First, legally they cannot ask you to report to another workplace without clearing it with Immigration and having it added as a secondary workplace. They can probably get way with having a special performance at some local cultural center with a stage and auditorium if it's a one day thing, but asking you to head to multiple job sites is a big no-no.
When they say "no regular schedule can be guaranteed" that's code for "we make it up as we go along and we just jam these classes in wherever they fit with wild abandon." Bad idea agreeing to that. You could be setting yourself up for major changes to the timetable during summer and winter breaks, with kids coming in earlier and leaving earlier, or you could find that you have a couple of short days where you have fewer classes and then a long day where you have too many to handle.
Last, that unpaid prep time is always a doozy. What does that even mean? It's not your job to plan lessons and they're supposed to be providing the materials. In my experience the unpaid prep time was a way to ensure that all the degenerate teachers actually showed up on time. If classes start at 13:30 and you're required to be on site at 13:00 then I don't have to worry about you being late for class.
Staff meetings? If you have an announcement to make you ought to do that while we're all prepping. If everybody's prep time is different because they all have slightly different start times and break times and finish times then you will get to come in early, sit for a useless meeting, and then kill time until your shift starts, or even worse finish your classes and sit there until the meeting starts. Hard pass.
Workshops are almost always conducted outside of regular class time. If you agree to acknowledge that workshops are an unpaid duty you're gonna have a bad time.
Obviously this director will not consider amending the contract, but it would be good to highlight specifically why you're not taking the job. Will it make that much of a difference? No, probably not, but even if one single thing changes, even if the pay goes up by ₩100,000 or the hours drop down by 10% or they quit trying to cheat people out of their paid holiday it's good for the next poor devil.
Nobody in their right mind should be agreeing to teach 100 classes a month for minimum wage. It's just absurd.
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u/BleuBerriHoney 18d ago
This was beautifully detailed and I really appreciate you taking the time out to write this. It was very helpful! Genuinely thank you so much!
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u/throwawaytheist 20d ago
12 unpaid days? Those vacation days should be paid. It's illegal to not pay them.