Ebony,

I agree completely. Wages for basic teaching jobs are spiraling inexorably downwards. Meanwhile, tuitions are going up, up up...which means that the English biz is buying a lot of big shiny black cars.

4000 has long been a standard salary in China, and it's insulting. It's chump change! But I'm seeing more and more jobs offered that, as you indicate, offer even less than 4K.

Not all the blame can go on the schools here. They pay these ridiculously trifling salaries because people are silly enough to take them! If people stop accepting the 3-4K (and even less) jobs, we'll see salaries shoot back up PDQ...

Why do people take jobs like this? They don't know any better. They swallow the "competitive salary" and "four times the local average salary" hooey they see in the jobs ads. They approach job applications from the "Gee, I sure hope I'm lucky enough to get this job" perspective they're used to back home, rather than the "I'm in demand and I have some leverage here!" position they should use.

And the "in-demand" part is diluting. More and more clueless newbies are coming here, completely unarmed and uninformed for what they're getting into. Many schools have gone from being lucky to have a native speaker at all, to being able to pick and choose the most gullible ones. And since Chinese schools are blissfully unconstrained by concepts such as "standards" or "quality", they can simply bottom-feed and max those profits.

Unfortunately, it's hard to get the word out. It helps a little to post the truth on sites like this one, but apparently for every newcomer who reads these sites there are hundreds who come here who have done no preparation or research at all.

So, keep saying things like this. Say them often, in as many places as you can. Reach the ones you can reach. It's all we can do...that, and refuse to take those miserable jobs!