My wife is in the market for a full time job and has been interviewing at a few companies around the city. She was working as a Coordinator of International Relations at the local government office, but due to various reasons (power harassment, bureaucracy, refusal to negotiate) she quit. Now she is happily working part time as a secretary for ¥1300/hour. It’s not great pay, but the work is easy, her coworkers are friendly, and she has ample free time at home.
One of the companies she applied for is a local furniture company with distributors around the world, including the US, Australia, and Europe. They sell premium hand-crafted furniture. Just for reference, their showroom featured leather sofas for ¥1,200,000 and hardwood meeting tables for ¥2,000,000. Now the company is looking to expand their business into Taiwan. It sounded like the perfect fit for my wife, who has an international business degree, is fluent in Chinese, Japanese (N1), and English, and is Taiwanese.
She had three interviews in January and February, in each one stating she wanted at least her previous salary of ¥325,000/month. They came back late February with an offer for part time work, 20 hours a week, at ¥1000/hour. She turned it down.
Now just this week, the company contacted her again with a full time offer: ¥197,000/month with bonus twice a year at 0.7 months pay, plus ¥10,000/month transportation allowance. The hours are 8am-5pm. Are you kidding me? You want someone with all these qualifications and experience to work for what is basically minimum wage? Unbelievable.
by CorruptPhoenix