average wages in SA

[cverbois]

Hi there,

I am currently living in Belgium and I've been looking for some Jobs in SA (CT)being Implentation Consultant in Customer Service applications.
Now I managed to have some contacts in several companies and first discussions just started.
But I'm surprised looking to the average wages...these seems much lower than what I expected. There shouldn't be a great difference if companies need to attract expat workers, isn't it. I know the cost of living is also different but did some of you manage to have an equivalent wage moving to SA?

I'd really love taking the challenge but convincing myself(and wife :-) earning less would be difficult...

[Anu]

yeah very true, Average salary is very less in SA, but for special skill... it is good, Dont know much abt Cpt, but in JHB mostly prople get some where 11-15K and they live outside main city.. in cheap places like Borksburg, lenasia, Soweto, kingston..etc etc.... I satyed in Sadton... in that place i was paying 8K per month for single bedroom flat...... Make all enquiries before u move there....

Waterver they offering, make sure that u can live good life there and save in that salary.... after all we all move juts for saving money for future.

but no doubt SA is great country and i would love to live there my whole life

I love SA

Unfortuantley SA's immigartion policy it to discourage foreigners... so that local people get more and more jobs.

Best of luck with your move and job search.

Cheers
Anu

[USEngineer]

Yes - I was very surprised. I was offered much less than half of what I made in the US.

Anu - are you quoting monthly income? in Rand or Euro? 11K to 15K Rand per month?

[synthia]

I worked there on an IT contract in the early 80's. My salary at that time was less than 2/3 of what I had made in the US, including the housing allowance, the car, and the car maintenance allowance I was given. This was enough to rent a three-bedroom house on a 1/3 acre plot, with swimming pool, travel for all of my 6 weeks of vacation each year, have a maid two days a week, go out for dinner and for drinks at least twice a week, buy a new, lighter-weight wardrobe, and save enough money to pay for an overland trip by truck for (a supposed) four months, five weeks in Europe, and five months travel in the US. Now, I'm a budget travel, and only a few of these trips involved airplanes and nice hotels. The cost of living makes a major, major difference. You could, for instance, get double a US salary to work in London and find that you can barely survive.

[Anu]

Hey US Engineer

I am talking abt monthly salary in rands. people get very less salary, Unskilled people even get 5K-8K.

Cheers
Anu

[USEngineer]

Well Synthia - that sounds like a wonderful quality of life. I wonder if its still that good, 25 or so years later? When I've looked online for SA properties for rent and sale in Gauteng - it looked like you had to pay $400,000 to half a mil US for a reasonable house and rent looked like $5000 - $6000 US per month.

I found this very expensive and it is discouraging me. I currently live in a 5 bedroom, 3 living room, 3 car garage home and by the SA websites showing properties, it looked like I would have to earn more than I do here, just for a similar living condition.

what do you make of it? I'm a bit confused

[synthia]

Sorry, I wasn't trying to imply that you could live well on less now, necessarily. I was just trying to illustrate that it is possible to take a salary cut and live better in many ways, or get a big raise and struggle.

Why not ask these companies if they have some information packets that they can give you? And find out if there are allowances and other perks like company cars. If the negotiations get serious, ask for names of others that have made the move and talk to them.

Is this neighborhood especially good, bad, or expensive? I think you are talking about Capetown, but I lived in little Welkom, so I don't know

It may well be more expensive to live there than where you live in the US. If you were in New York City, $400,000 for house would look pretty cheap. If you are coming from a small town in Alabama...

These sorts of things are reallly hard to figure out, because it depends in part on what is important to you. Housing in particular is hard. Someone might look at the cost to rent a house in a really upscale neighborhood and think everything is too expensive when there are perfectly nice places that are much less expensive where you don't pay for prestige.

Usually, you can't replicate the lifestyle you are leaving behind. I had a maid and a gardener and a swimming pool, but I only had heat in one room, and that was unusual. It was pretty unpleasant when it was 20F (about -5C) in the middle of the night.

There are some cost-of-living converters out there, one on this site, I believe.