Small paychecks for PR professionals in Taiwan?! Why?

Recently I was approached by a world renowned PR agency for a potential job opportunity. This has been quite an honor for me as I am glad that I am still on the market, six months after my departure. I won't name names here and it's also inappropriate to do dumb things like that on a blog so don't ask me which company it is.

Despite my feeling of vanity, however, some common practices (read: problems) in the PR industry in Taiwan still trouble me. To be precise, they are the reason why I'm hesitant at this opportunity, though the title and ensuing responsibilities sound very attractive. I am quite reserved of throwing myself back in to that world.

I came across a blog written by Andres Wittermann today. His short article regarding the low salary scale of beginners in PR in Germany caught my attention. I subsequently left a comment to his article. For the readers who are interested in checking out Andre's blog, click here.

Basically what I was telling Andres was that I feel it is a pity that professionals in the PR industry in Taiwan are requested to work that hard by contributing their brains, personal time and sometimes even to the point of sacrificing their physical health all at the same time but are expected to be paid piecemeal compared to other types of consultants. Although it is a chance for me to return to the exciting PR industry undertaking potentially much desired responsibilities, I seriously dread the life in which I was under paid, felt dog-tired everyday while giving my absolute 120%.

I am not sure whether payment scales in PR have the same phenomenon in other countries. But hopefully anyone who's set their foot in PR before can share their perspective with me on this particular matter.

At the end of this posting, I would like to share a Salary Survey Report done by PRWeek back in year 2000. Although the article was written six years ago, many of the situations depicted are still truer than ever.