Posts go viral on online communities

Netizens say: 'All the pretense, none of the pay'

Not related to this article. [Image generated by AI]
Not related to this article. [Image generated by AI]

A job listing seeking someone to drive an elementary school student to and from school — but requiring the driver to own a foreign-brand car — has drawn a wave of criticism online. The pay offered was 10,000 won ($8) per trip, below South Korea's 2026 minimum wage of 10,320 won per hour.

On Friday, screenshots of two job listings originally posted on Karrot, a secondhand trading platform, spread across multiple online communities.

In one listing, posted under the title "Looking for someone to pick up my child," poster A sought someone to drive a child to and from school. "I'm looking for a foreign car owner who can pick up my child at home and take them to school, and bring them back home from school," the post read, adding that the child is a girl and that each trip was expected to take no more than 20 minutes. "No other help is needed beyond the pickup," A added.

The pay was listed as 10,000 won per trip, to be paid on the same day. The post did not clarify whether the morning and afternoon trips each counted as one trip or together as one. Notably, the phrase "foreign car owner" was placed in quotation marks for emphasis, with no explanation given for why owning a foreign-brand vehicle was a requirement.

The second listing, titled "Dinner preparation," sought a cooking helper. Poster B said raising three children — ages 4 and 2, plus an infant — had made it difficult to find time to plan and prepare dinner. "I'm looking for someone to help with meal preparation," the post said.

B said a meal plan would be provided and asked the helper to shop at a nearby market accordingly and prepare five servings to match photos included in the plan.

"Come to our home at 5 p.m. every day, prepare dinner, and have everything ready to eat by 6 p.m. You can leave at 6," B wrote.

B added that the food should feel "like a home-cooked meal a mother would make, or the kind of meal served at a boarding house," and encouraged applicants who enjoy cooking, noting that the market is very close by.

The job requires working every day of the week, one hour per day — for a daily wage of 10,000 won.

In other words, the successful applicant would earn 10,000 won a day to shop at a market and prepare a full home-style dinner for five people within one hour, seven days a week.

Netizens who saw the two listings reacted with disbelief. "They can't even follow the minimum wage law," one wrote. Others said, "All the pretense, none of the savings to back it up," "That won't even cover gas," "Shopping and cooking dinner should be at least 100,000 won per job," and "Would a Chinese-made car be OK?"

Meanwhile, South Korea's minimum wage crossed the 10,000-won-per-hour threshold for the first time last year, when it was set at 10,030 won. This year it stands at 10,320 won, and next year it is set to rise 3.7 percent to 10,700 won.


jshan@heraldcorp.com