By continuing you agree to eChinacities's Privacy Policy .
Sign up with Google
Sign up with Facebook
Q: How much have your wages changed over the years?
For those of you who have been here a long time could you please tell us how much have your wages changed over you time here? What about your overall income if you do side work? Also do you feel your job and life in general have gotten better or worse?
I will only opine on the first part of your question.
Back in '98, you had to be invited to work in China - you couldn't suddenly appear on the mainland and hope for a legitimate job.
Salaries for teachers started at 14K/mo and went up according to what you taught. University positions always maintained their regimen: 5000 for a B.A, 5500 for Master's, 6000 for PhDs.
Since then, I've seen wages decline dramatically (supply and demand) whilst the cost of living has skyrocketed.
Example: in Beijing, a two-bedroom, two-bathroom (with bath tubs!), heat/ac, carpeting in the bedrooms, elevator etc., would set you back 5K/mo. After SARS, 3K/mo. Now you're looking at almost a 300% increase for the same unit.
If you look at intangibles (benefits): airfares used to be actual airfare reimbursement and not a set rate (5-8k/annum seems to be the norm now).
Teachers used to be paid 12 months/year on a year's+ contract (two-year contracts were common back then).
Most contracts had built-in yearly raises and/or bonuses.
There were never any positions that required office hours or weekends (save for the handful of training centers).
I laugh when I see employers offering meager wages coupled with an extensive list of requirements for basically a baby-sitter's job (TOEFL/SAT/IELTS/AP for learners 0-6 years of age! Come visit beautiful and historic Lifen - we pay 3000RMB/mo with a shared apartment and free delicious meals at our canteen! Only 40 hours per week, plus events, promotions, mandatory meetings and washing the owner's BMW...experience the real China!)
Basically, I used to have a fantastic standard of living based on a budget of 100 RMB/day (which included dining out at TGI Friday's and the Paulaner Bauhaus, nights and clubs, taxi fares, etc.) One can still manage on 100 RMB/day but the what that gets you today I don't consider "living" only "surviving" (cue the "I only make 4000 RMB/mo and I eat delicious food and I still save 90% of my money" mantras - but like Mikeca once said, "I didn't come here to be a hobo" - or in my own words, "I came to here to experience China, not to be Chinese."
My salary has more than doubled, and I'm better at saving...
...that said I've moved from job to job to job
5,5 fold + benefits, in my almost 10 years in China. I always worked as expat for Western companies.
well i m 2 years here now and changed my job in total 3 times. all in all i earn now 5 times more than i started with and live a comfortable life. unfortunately in a city thats not worth living in
After 3 years, between the initial income and my current income, 5x increase ^^ I always been on local contract, not expat for a foreign company.
It has gone up about 10% a year, but it is a seven figure expat salary. I have been here 5 years.
Contracted job only.....5,000...6,500 for a weekend only schedule. Free shared (sometimes) apartment.
Since then; 8,000...9,000...9,000 for a kickass 11 x 40 min Mon/Fri schedule. 1,400 towards apartment.
Not much money, yes. But most convenient, and time aplenty to bolster it somewhat.
My salary has gone up and down a lot depending on the job. In general my salary has been much higher when working either in the private sector (IT companies, training centres) or in small colleges in 3-tier or 4-tier cities where there is very little in the way of demand.
I am now making 8-9,000 per month in Guangzhou (depending on part-time work) but due to the ever-increasing living costs I would say that that is far from enough.
I wont include anything recent because its a question about teachig salaries. So i can only talk about from 2007-11.
Salary changes also reflect different cities.
2007-wuhan- rookie year- 7400 + 1000 housing.
2008- guangzhou- 14500
2010- foshan- 180000 *13 months
2011- same job- 22000* 13 months.
I have switched my job pretty often in China until I made my own... this is how it went:
2006 - 4500 RMB
2007 - 5500 RMB
2008 - 6000 RMB
2009 - 10 000 RMB
2010 - 14 500 RMB
2011 - 18 000 RMB
Then from there, I quit and did my own thing now make 3x -5x my last salary. Depends on how well the month goes, every month varies.
Not much but enough. 
Around 11000 (6000 from Uni and around 5000 from part time).
No rent or bills to pay, save 2/3 of it...
