It’s official: Expats in Thailand are deliriously happy!

[NCFC]

Did NIDA have a hand in running this poll?

[Whyamiandwhatamidoinghere]

There doesn't need to be 16 plus pages of comments. The O. P was just being sarcastic. The average foreigner? Come on... 2+2 is equal to 7...right?

[bbbbooboo]

Delerious being the key word probably

[DrTuner]

Now I know where this survey must have been done. At the free beer 4th of July event, after a few hours and thousands of liters of beer.

[chiang mai]

I'm very happy here but there again, I only spend time with farangs perhaps once or twice a month and even then only for a chat over lunch. Being away from the source of 99% of the complaints helps a lot.

[z42]

Average person earns 100k a month? What?? I must be in the wrong job then, I get half that, I know maybe 1 person here who earns 100k a month, what am I missing exactly?

You must missing a lot. I know a lot foreigners with over 100,000 Baht monthly payment. At the place I work are 5 of such guys, including me.

I know lots of foreigners earning 300 to 500 k month 100k/m is chicken feed...

We have Thai nationals working for us who make 200k/m min

The labourers on the factory floor earn 30k/m

Bunnychow, can I ask what industry such payments are in? That is frankly insane money.

I work in education, I have a PGCE and close to a decade of experience, half of that in western countries. Just so you know, the salary that most teachers get even in the UK would only come to about 145k a month (that's for the heads of department, year heads etc).

I have many friends who also teach here, many work in good international schools and simply don't bring home close to 100K. Mostly from the 60-80k bracket.

I am just curious as the article talks about the average salaries being 100k. I must be incredibly naive, but I don't see many places offering such packages here (unless of course it is in finance, or for multi national companies or some such)

[Bunnychow]

Average person earns 100k a month? What?? I must be in the wrong job then, I get half that, I know maybe 1 person here who earns 100k a month, what am I missing exactly?

You must missing a lot. I know a lot foreigners with over 100,000 Baht monthly payment. At the place I work are 5 of such guys, including me.

I know lots of foreigners earning 300 to 500 k month 100k/m is chicken feed...

We have Thai nationals working for us who make 200k/m min

The labourers on the factory floor earn 30k/m

Bunnychow, can I ask what industry such payments are in? That is frankly insane money.

I work in education, I have a PGCE and close to a decade of experience, half of that in western countries. Just so you know, the salary that most teachers get even in the UK would only come to about 145k a month (that's for the heads of department, year heads etc).

I have many friends who also teach here, many work in good international schools and simply don't bring home close to 100K. Mostly from the 60-80k bracket.

I am just curious as the article talks about the average salaries being 100k. I must be incredibly naive, but I don't see many places offering such packages here (unless of course it is in finance, or for multi national companies or some such)

Heavy Engineering and its not insane money, its pretty much the typical sorts of rates internationally - salary ranges of USD 8k to USD 15/m+ not that unusual...

Difference is in this industry getting it "wrong" can end up costing millions and millions of dollars so the tendency is to pay decent money for people who know what they are doing as its good business economics, Experience gets you the "good" money, but I am talking about 15 to 20 years minimum when I mean experience, not 5 to 10 years

As far as i am aware, teaching in a vocation/career and the money is secondary according to some of the teachers who have "preached" to me

Frankly having worked in the UK, the money is not that good anyway.. don't get me wrong its ok, but your can get more in other countries doing the same job

[chiang mai]

Even ten or fifteen year ago, it was not unusual for expats on contract to earn 600k a month, plus per diem/expenses, mostly in banking, IT and business consulting.

[korkenzieher]

Surely a case of over-adverbing.

Delirious, but happy. Now, THAT I can believe!

de·lir·i·ous

dəˈlirēəs/

adjective

adjective: delirious

1. in an acutely disturbed state of mind resulting from illness or intoxication and characterized by restlessness, illusions, and incoherence of thought and speech.

   synonyms: incoherent, raving, babbling, irrational;

[LannaGuy]

The other misleading thing is they are trying to give the 'impression' that 100,000 is the average income and it is just not true. many mini-survey on TV have been done in the past on TV and the average seems around 40,000 and, I can only say, amongst my friends around 50,000 is the norm for retirees. It's just spin and BS and I'm really Shocked TV would get involved with it and I can only assume it's the change in ownership[ of TV.

[DrTuner]

According to CNN money's "How close are you to the top 1%" annual household income of 440k USD in the US puts you in the 1%. That's 37k USD per month, about 1.3M baht per month. So a one percenter might make 600k baht here, possible.

One percent of the foreign workforce here, which excluding Burmese etc is what, 400k persons? Might be 4000 persons in Thailand getting that sort of cash. Very likely most of them in BKK.

[SoiBiker]

Average person earns 100k a month? What?? I must be in the wrong job then, I get half that, I know maybe 1 person here who earns 100k a month, what am I missing exactly?

You must missing a lot. I know a lot foreigners with over 100,000 Baht monthly payment. At the place I work are 5 of such guys, including me.

I know lots of foreigners earning 300 to 500 k month 100k/m is chicken feed...

We have Thai nationals working for us who make 200k/m min

The labourers on the factory floor earn 30k/m

Bunnychow, can I ask what industry such payments are in? That is frankly insane money.

I work in education, I have a PGCE and close to a decade of experience, half of that in western countries. Just so you know, the salary that most teachers get even in the UK would only come to about 145k a month (that's for the heads of department, year heads etc).

I have many friends who also teach here, many work in good international schools and simply don't bring home close to 100K. Mostly from the 60-80k bracket.

I am just curious as the article talks about the average salaries being 100k. I must be incredibly naive, but I don't see many places offering such packages here (unless of course it is in finance, or for multi national companies or some such)

Those international schools aren't as good as you think they are if that's all they're paying.

[Caveat Emptor]

This so called survey was a topic of conversation in my local watering hole yesterday and the comments were not only less than complimentary they were unprintable.

General question was does TV have to sink to the level of fraud to provoke conversation and the answer was yes. All the stories of authorised forum trolls stoking controversy pale compared to this rubbish.

[Don Mega]

The other misleading thing is they are trying to give the 'impression' that 100,000 is the average income and it is just not true. many mini-survey on TV have been done in the past on TV and the average seems around 40,000 and, I can only say, amongst my friends around 50,000 is the norm for retirees. It's just spin and BS and I'm really Shocked TV would get involved with it and I can only assume it's the change in ownership[ of TV.

50k for retiree is not exactly an income

[SoiBiker]

This so called survey was a topic of conversation in my local watering hole yesterday and the comments were not only less than complimentary they were unprintable.

General question was does TV have to sink to the level of fraud to provoke conversation and the answer was yes. All the stories of authorised forum trolls stoking controversy pale compared to this rubbish.

You sit around talking about Thaivisa in the real world?

Wow. Mind blown.

[LannaGuy]

The other misleading thing is they are trying to give the 'impression' that 100,000 is the average income and it is just not true. many mini-survey on TV have been done in the past on TV and the average seems around 40,000 and, I can only say, amongst my friends around 50,000 is the norm for retirees. It's just spin and BS and I'm really Shocked TV would get involved with it and I can only assume it's the change in ownership[ of TV.

50k for retiree is not exactly an income

what is it? I and my friends get an income every month in the form of a pension which is calculated for retirement visa as 'income' (65,000 a month) and most of us deposit 800,000 as a 'sunk cost' so we don't need to worry about having the 65,000

[puukao]

it seems cheap, but NOT if you retire at 50 and live to be 90. Still adds up to real money.

But at least 1/2 as cheap as America, and maybe 1/3 as inexpensive.

I'm not 50......my luck all the rules will change by then.

[dageurreotype]

This so called survey was a topic of conversation in my local watering hole yesterday and the comments were not only less than complimentary they were unprintable.

General question was does TV have to sink to the level of fraud to provoke conversation and the answer was yes. All the stories of authorised forum trolls stoking controversy pale compared to this rubbish.

Have to agree, there appear to be an increasing number of troll like 'news' postings on this forum, the current one about business ownership (by Coconuts, no less ,,) spring to mind, and don't get me started on the multi threaded condo holdings one on the Phuket forum. I'm guessing there's less and less deemed 'safe' to post here nowadays. A pretty quick skim is just about all I can manage

[Khon Kaen Dave]

Aslimversgwm.

Thanx for the post,mate.I hope you and your partner find true happiness and i wish you both love and luck for the future years.

Good luck brother.

[anotheruser]

If they are earning 100k a month in Pattaya they must be pimps

You do realize that 100 k per month is around 36K U.S. dollars per year. An ex-pat who is not making at least double that is an idiot. More likely to be making closer to 300k baht per month than 100k.

Doing what exactly?, the only jobs I heard of in that range were 4 star hotel management, not many doing that.

Try computer system designer for an insurance company. 300K would be the lower level people on the team, the higher level Thai staff would be around 150,000k. It is funny even the figure of 600K per month some people have brought up is peanuts. It isn't even a quarter million a year in dollars. The people that think 100K is a lot make me laugh but some of the people here who think they are big shots in any sense because the make the 1,000,000 a month mentioned earlier are equally funny. You are going to find most the people in this thread are small fish in a big pond.

600,000 a month is on the bottom end of the corporate totem pole. Go to Singapore or Tokyo and brag about such paltry figures, they are okay for Thailand but in most other places aren't much. Not sure about the oil guys or engineers and those types but for an IT professional you wouldn't go around bragging about making less than 250K a year. The boys in Silicon valley wouldn't be all that impressed.

I am sure most the people living in the condo I live in easily make more than 300,000 a month or the probably wouldn't live here.

Anyway that's my rant guys making these kind of amounts making fun of people making 50,000 a month are pretty pathetic. Yes, you are real big shots...

And yes this survey is showing how awful TV is becoming. I remember when TV was sold thinking it might improve but the site was much better before George sold it. I know they are trying to generate traffic and all but some days you just feel dumber the more you read this site, these days.

[Khon Kaen Dave]

Mcfish

You dont read,do you.Never in one written line has my post been aggressive.You are trying to pick out sections of it,obviously to save face.I never said that Bkk or Pattaya or any where else scared me.I said i tired of it.Sorry you lost your temper,but i'm sure that some more of your meds and a few drinks will calm you down.it fun to spar with people with so little education or brains such as you.Please bring it on.I love it.Any body of any intelligence will read the post and understand what i mean.

I've really no time for your sort,so please be a love and call it a day.This puerile rubbish you are coming back with is both boring and childish.

Lets stop it now before we both grow old enough to get our state pensions.

[bentfarang]

Average person earns 100k a month? What?? I must be in the wrong job then, I get half that, I know maybe 1 person here who earns 100k a month, what am I missing exactly?

Sounfs like a teacher's salary. Outside of teaching I think salaries go north of 100k.

[SoiBiker]

Average person earns 100k a month? What?? I must be in the wrong job then, I get half that, I know maybe 1 person here who earns 100k a month, what am I missing exactly?

Sounfs like a teacher's salary. Outside of teaching I think salaries go north of 100k.

The teachers I know earn more than 100k.

[Gweiloman]

You do realize that 100 k per month is around 36K U.S. dollars per year. An ex-pat who is not making at least double that is an idiot. More likely to be making closer to 300k baht per month than 100k.

Doing what exactly?, the only jobs I heard of in that range were 4 star hotel management, not many doing that.

Try computer system designer for an insurance company. 300K would be the lower level people on the team, the higher level Thai staff would be around 150,000k. It is funny even the figure of 600K per month some people have brought up is peanuts. It isn't even a quarter million a year in dollars. The people that think 100K is a lot make me laugh but some of the people here who think they are big shots in any sense because the make the 1,000,000 a month mentioned earlier are equally funny. You are going to find most the people in this thread are small fish in a big pond.

600,000 a month is on the bottom end of the corporate totem pole. Go to Singapore or Tokyo and brag about such paltry figures, they are okay for Thailand but in most other places aren't much. Not sure about the oil guys or engineers and those types but for an IT professional you wouldn't go around bragging about making less than 250K a year. The boys in Silicon valley wouldn't be all that impressed.

I am sure most the people living in the condo I live in easily make more than 300,000 a month or the probably wouldn't live here.

Anyway that's my rant guys making these kind of amounts making fun of people making 50,000 a month are pretty pathetic. Yes, you are real big shots...

And yes this survey is showing how awful TV is becoming. I remember when TV was sold thinking it might improve but the site was much better before George sold it. I know they are trying to generate traffic and all but some days you just feel dumber the more you read this site, these days.

You are talking rubbish.

Sure, there are people earning serious money. They make up what we call the 1%ers. Even then, the low end earnings of 1%ers is not really that high either. In the UK, one qualifies merely by earning about Gbp 80,000 per annum.

This thread talks about average salaries. No way does the average Thai earn Thb 100,000 per month. Only senior top level Thais would be earning this, whether in a local conglomerate or multinational.

With regards to expats, it really depends. Are we talking about those that came out here on a company transfer or those that came out on their own? For the former, of course they would easily be earning north of 100,000 or more, depending on their experience and level. For the latter, most would be earning around 50-60k per month.

[SoiBiker]

I don't think anyone is claiming the average Thai earns 100k a month. That would be silly.

[anotheruser]

You do realize that 100 k per month is around 36K U.S. dollars per year. An ex-pat who is not making at least double that is an idiot. More likely to be making closer to 300k baht per month than 100k.

Doing what exactly?, the only jobs I heard of in that range were 4 star hotel management, not many doing that.

Try computer system designer for an insurance company. 300K would be the lower level people on the team, the higher level Thai staff would be around 150,000k. It is funny even the figure of 600K per month some people have brought up is peanuts. It isn't even a quarter million a year in dollars. The people that think 100K is a lot make me laugh but some of the people here who think they are big shots in any sense because the make the 1,000,000 a month mentioned earlier are equally funny. You are going to find most the people in this thread are small fish in a big pond.

600,000 a month is on the bottom end of the corporate totem pole. Go to Singapore or Tokyo and brag about such paltry figures, they are okay for Thailand but in most other places aren't much. Not sure about the oil guys or engineers and those types but for an IT professional you wouldn't go around bragging about making less than 250K a year. The boys in Silicon valley wouldn't be all that impressed.

I am sure most the people living in the condo I live in easily make more than 300,000 a month or the probably wouldn't live here.

Anyway that's my rant guys making these kind of amounts making fun of people making 50,000 a month are pretty pathetic. Yes, you are real big shots...

And yes this survey is showing how awful TV is becoming. I remember when TV was sold thinking it might improve but the site was much better before George sold it. I know they are trying to generate traffic and all but some days you just feel dumber the more you read this site, these days.

You are talking rubbish.

Sure, there are people earning serious money. They make up what we call the 1%ers. Even then, the low end earnings of 1%ers is not really that high either. In the UK, one qualifies merely by earning about Gbp 80,000 per annum.

This thread talks about average salaries. No way does the average Thai earn Thb 100,000 per month. Only senior top level Thais would be earning this, whether in a local conglomerate or multinational.

With regards to expats, it really depends. Are we talking about those that came out here on a company transfer or those that came out on their own? For the former, of course they would easily be earning north of 100,000 or more, depending on their experience and level. For the latter, most would be earning around 50-60k per month.

The Thais I am talking about in my post are at the top level in the company. I did say higher level in my post in regards to the Thais. They are around as senior as you get before being on the board of directors. After that level obviously the earnings can reach the sky. If you aren't earning easily north of 100,000 lol I don't know what to tell you. As I said the lower level guys in the IT department usually from India and other places are on packages of around 300,000K the westerners tend to be well above 500K per month and some substantially more.

People with bills back in London and consultants from Singapore don't come here for north of 100.

[Gweiloman]

Try computer system designer for an insurance company. 300K would be the lower level people on the team, the higher level Thai staff would be around 150,000k. It is funny even the figure of 600K per month some people have brought up is peanuts. It isn't even a quarter million a year in dollars. The people that think 100K is a lot make me laugh but some of the people here who think they are big shots in any sense because the make the 1,000,000 a month mentioned earlier are equally funny. You are going to find most the people in this thread are small fish in a big pond.

600,000 a month is on the bottom end of the corporate totem pole. Go to Singapore or Tokyo and brag about such paltry figures, they are okay for Thailand but in most other places aren't much. Not sure about the oil guys or engineers and those types but for an IT professional you wouldn't go around bragging about making less than 250K a year. The boys in Silicon valley wouldn't be all that impressed.

I am sure most the people living in the condo I live in easily make more than 300,000 a month or the probably wouldn't live here.

Anyway that's my rant guys making these kind of amounts making fun of people making 50,000 a month are pretty pathetic. Yes, you are real big shots...

And yes this survey is showing how awful TV is becoming. I remember when TV was sold thinking it might improve but the site was much better before George sold it. I know they are trying to generate traffic and all but some days you just feel dumber the more you read this site, these days.

You are talking rubbish.

Sure, there are people earning serious money. They make up what we call the 1%ers. Even then, the low end earnings of 1%ers is not really that high either. In the UK, one qualifies merely by earning about Gbp 80,000 per annum.

This thread talks about average salaries. No way does the average Thai earn Thb 100,000 per month. Only senior top level Thais would be earning this, whether in a local conglomerate or multinational.

With regards to expats, it really depends. Are we talking about those that came out here on a company transfer or those that came out on their own? For the former, of course they would easily be earning north of 100,000 or more, depending on their experience and level. For the latter, most would be earning around 50-60k per month.

The Thais I am talking about in my post are at the top level in the company. I did say higher level in my post in regards to the Thais. They are around as senior as you get before being on the board of directors. After that level obviously the earnings can reach the sky. If you aren't earning easily north of 100,000 lol I don't know what to tell you. As I said the lower level guys in the IT department usually from India and other places are on packages of around 300,000K the westerners tend to be well above 500K per month and some substantially more.

People with bills back in London and consultants from Singapore don't come here for north of 100.

I don't disagree with you. The two top earning Thais in my company earn about Thb 150,000 per month (late forties, mid fifties respectively). Our Japanese expatriates have packages ranging from 200,000+ up to 1 million. I recently seconded a young chap (early thirties) from our Czech Republic operations and he's on a modest package of just over Thb 100,000. But like I said, the high earners are those that are transferred by the company with all associated expat benefits. Locally employed staff (whether Thai or farang) is unlikely to be earning anywhere near Thb 100,000.

[anotheruser]

Then I am not sure why you said I was talking rubbish if you don't disagree?

[Gweiloman]

Then I am not sure why you said I was talking rubbish if you don't disagree?

I called rubbish on your over-exaggerations.

600k is peanuts? 1 mil a month is not a lot? 600k is bottom end of corp totem pole?

Like I said, there are lots of people making serious money but these are still only a small minority (we are talking salaried employees, not business owners).

Another thing about Singapore or Tokyo (you can also include Hong Kong) is that salary levels have to be in line with cost of living. 600k a month won't get you very far in these cities but in Thailand, it goes a long, long way.

[Mook23]

If they are earning 100k a month in Pattaya they must be pimps

You do realize that 100 k per month is around 36K U.S. dollars per year. An ex-pat who is not making at least double that is an idiot. More likely to be making closer to 300k baht per month than 100k.

Doing what exactly?, the only jobs I heard of in that range were 4 star hotel management, not many doing that.

Jobs in Engineering, Eastern Seaboard, Japanese, Koreans, Western expats etc...and yes most making 300k plus month

International Engineering offices in BKK - same Asia/ Western expats - 300k to THB 1.0 mill/month dependent on the position.

time to get your head out the Thai sand....Expats in Thailand.... a lot more going one than "English Teachers" blagging 25k/m from a language school

What I don't understand is some of the howls of protest and calling BS on here when someone mentions 100k and above salaries (not that 100k is a big salary)

Did these posters think they were are big fish on their 30-100 k/m or actually think they were at the top of the shit pile in Thailand and the realization is they are actually little fish and near the bottom of the dung heap in the expat stakes in Thailand ?

Yeah the arrogance of some people is striking. The best lot are the ones who earn 70.000thb back home and spend 45.000thb of it here on beer and whores while holidaying in pats 555