Hello,
Using a throwaway since my normal account is used for local communities and has some personal info. I’ve been interning for a tech company based in Tokyo since graduating, and they’ve offered me a full time position. I wanted to see if this was an acceptable offer based on the cost of living in Tokyo.
I work in design, the company is based in Japan but they have locations in North America. The offer is 5.2 million yen base, they wrote in the letter that bonuses are typically given twice a year based on how well the company does. Transportation will be paid for, sign on bonus of 500,000 yen.
I’m a bit worried about the exchange rate since I have student loans. I’m from a MCOL city in the US so the cost of living compared to Tokyo is much lower. After doing the conversion, they were actually paying me a little bit more during my internship (was being paid in USD). I wanted to ask some others opinions on whether or not this amount is okay.
Also side note, I have lived in Japan before when I was in high school, but I’ve never lived in Tokyo.
Thanks!
3 comments
Any idea how many month’s bonuses they are giving? That is a pretty important factor.
Usually Shinsotsu bonuses are 4 months worth, although as you climb higher, it does kind of decrease. My first job which had a salary of 200,000 per month, we got 4 month bonuses, so my annual was 16* 200,000 for a whopping grand total of 3.2M. Later on, the base salary in my next job was 5.5M but then my bonus was only 10% of my annual.
For argument sake, if your total compensation is 5.8M (10% bonus case) that is a decent salary if you are between the ages of 30-35. If your bonus was 4 months worth that puts you around 7M a year which would be well above average and you should be able to live pretty comfortably and it would be enough to provide for a family in Tokyo without a working partner.
You should confirm the final numbers with them. It’s likely that 5.2 million already includes the bonus, since bonus is nothing but the unpaid part of regular salary which can be slightly bigger or slightly smaller depending on how good are the sales.
For Tokyo 5.2 million is the average salary. It isn’t very good or very bad, it will land you into a more or less comfortable spot without any luxury though. If you’re a fresh graduate, it’s an okayish offer, but you should look higher later.
Please note that most if not all companies pay the transportation, medical insurance and other expenses which are necessary to do the work.
5.2m is actually a pretty good offer for new grads. Unless you are a software engineer then it’s terrible.
But more importantly, do you have any other offer in the states? Hard to say whether this is good or not to you without knowing your other options.
Cost of living should be comparable to average US cities as long as you go local – get a smaller apartment, don’t own pets, don’t own a car, etc.
Paying your student loan under the current exchange rate is going to be horrible, but the FX change in the past year may not persistent in the future.