I used to work in Thai schools, and it seemed that a few years ago the 'going rate' was around 33-35 thousand baht/month. I've just been taking a look at jobs listings and it seems 30-32 thousand is more the norm now, and we all know that the cost of living in Thailand has gone up enormously in the last two years. (I'd wager as much as 10% per year, realistically).

I'm wondering if people currently in the job can comment - are salaries being squeezed for some reason?

Haven't checked the listings recently, and it's never easy to understand the anti-economics of it- but I would guess that with the increasing bureaucratic SNAFUs that have been introduced (does anyone have one of those new, PERMANENT (not a 2-year or 5-year workaround) teacher's licenses they've told us are supposed to be issued yet- no matter how qualified you are?- and the drumbeating for higher and higher real qualifications for the purposes of earning 30K-

that the unreality of the situation has simply meant that no truly qualified native-speaking foreigners are available on the current market, and that what has happened is that the formerly lower wages for Filipinos, Burmese, etc. who are among the better non-native speaking workers have risen to levels just below what was originally paid for native-speakers with TEFLs, and this is the level at which current lesser-qualified native-speakers must now compete.