Teaching English in Korea: What Job Ads Don't Say

Teaching English is how a large share of foreigners first arrive in Korea, and the recruitment market is built around a single number: the monthly salary. That number is the least informative part of the offer. Entry-level salaries cluster in a narrow band; what actually determines whether a year is good or miserable is everything printed around it.

Here is what to read in a contract, and what the ads leave out.

The first decision: public school or private academy

This choice shapes the year more than the employer does.

Public schools run through recruitment programmes with standardised contracts, which is their real advantage: the terms are known before you apply and do not vary by branch manager. Hours are daytime, holiday is generous, and there is normally a Korean co-teacher in the room.

Private academies pay a little more and take most of it back in holiday. Evening hours are the norm because students come after regular school. The critical point is variance: hagwons range from excellent, well-run schools to businesses that treat teachers as a cost line. The contract looks similar in both cases.

For a first year in Korea, public is the lower-risk choice. You are simultaneously learning a job, a country, and a language; predictable hours and real holiday matter more than a small pay difference.

What to read in the contract

Teaching hours versus contact hours. A contract stating 22 teaching hours may require 40 hours on site. Both numbers should appear. If only one does, ask for the other in writing.

Overtime. Is there a rate, and when does it apply? Some contracts define overtime as anything above the stated teaching hours; others quietly do not define it at all.

Housing. Usually provided as a small studio, sometimes as an allowance. Three questions to ask: is it furnished, how far from the school, and who pays utilities and building maintenance fees. "Housing provided" with a long commute and unpaid maintenance is a materially worse deal than it reads.

Severance. After a completed year of continuous employment, statutory severance of approximately one month's pay applies. This is law, not a negotiable benefit. A contract that appears to remove it does not override the statute — but recovering it from an unwilling employer can mean a complaint to the labour board, which is a process you would rather not need.

Pension and insurance. National Pension contributions are shared between employer and employee, and citizens of countries with a social security agreement with Korea can often reclaim their contributions on departure — a meaningful sum. National Health Insurance is mandatory and is the reason healthcare here is cheap.

Contract completion. Some contracts pay a completion bonus or the return flight only on finishing the full term. Know the trigger before you sign.

Checking an employer before you accept

The single highest-value thing you can do:

• Ask to speak to the current foreign teacher, unsupervised. A school with nothing to hide will arrange it. A refusal is itself the answer.
• Ask how long the previous teacher stayed. High turnover in a small school is the clearest available signal.
• Search the school's name alongside "review". Teacher communities maintain informal records of employers to avoid.
• Get every promise in the written contract. Verbal assurances about hours, holiday, or pay are not recoverable later.

Korea's Ministry of Employment and Labor operates labour offices that handle wage and severance complaints from foreign workers, and they are used more often than recruiters imply.

The visa reality

Teaching is normally on an E-2 visa, which is tied to the sponsoring school. Two consequences follow, and both are routinely underestimated:

Private tutoring on the side is a visa violation. It is common, it is openly discussed, and the penalty is deportation rather than a fine.

Leaving a job means dealing with immigration, not just the employer. Transferring to a new school requires a release and an approval process. Walking out of a bad hagwon without that groundwork puts your legal status at risk, which is exactly what a bad employer relies on.

Which Korean work visa you actually need covers the categories in full, including the routes out of employer-tied status.

What the ads never mention

The first month is expensive. Salary arrives at the end of the month, housing needs setting up, and you may pay a deposit even in provided accommodation. Arrive with a genuine buffer — the Seoul cost-of-living breakdown covers what that first month actually costs.

The job is not the same as the job at home. Class sizes, expectations, and the role of English in Korean education differ from what most new teachers expect.

"Near Seoul" is elastic. It appears in ads describing places well over an hour out. Ask for the district name and check it on a map yourself.

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Verified August 2026. Employment law and contract norms change, and individual employers vary widely. This is general information, not legal or employment advice — see terms. If your contract differs from what is described here, tell me.