Outsourcing - What Country has the Cheapest Labor?

[The Oilman]

I was jut wondering where the US dollar is worth the most in other countries?

Or -- in other words, which country has the cheapest labor.

Are those two sentences the same or different? I dont know.

[ChrisJamesG]

hmmm...labour for what (if you don't mind saying). This one might need to be questioned ethically...

[Cackle]

well, you might be able to get cheap work in countries where their English isn't great - and you'll have many more communication issues which will end up costing you more time and probably money in the long run. So, I don't know about going for the cheapest is necessarily the smartest. Where you can get a lot of bang for your buck though...are places like the Phillipines and
sometimes India, though I've noticed a dramatic increase in prices lately.

[hangtimenino]

I know for sure that 1US$ in Vietnam, is somewhere around 17,800.00 VND. and if you got a 100US$ instantly you become a millionare. :-)

[FreelanceSally]

If you want to outsource writing to someone in a third world country, good luck with that. My only advice is that you get what you pay for. Cheap price, cheap quality.

[yasky]

Really depends on what you are looking to outsource. I have had some good luck with articles and blog posts with India. You have to be very picky with them and explain exactly what you want. If they don't deliver you have to fire them immediately... Keep doing that and you will find some good outsourcing people.

[cassidywilliams]

I have been outsourcing from Bangladesh with great success. The standard of living (=prices) are cheaper there than India or Pakistan.

[OmarNegron]

not to sure on the country...but Scriptlance has some great deals as to what I have seen.

[jamesleepro1]

I would recommened Bangladesh
They are good and cheap also

[Justin Mandel]

I would say India has the least expensive going rates, but buyer beware.

[rika_downunder]

I'd support what primeoutsourcing said. Not that I have done it yet myself, but I am learning heaps about IM and Philippines has been repeatedly mentioned as the best place for outsourcing - their level of education is very high and English skills are great.

[petevamp]

indonesia is pretty cheap over at elance but everyone there hikes everything up outragously I paid over 200 for 15 500 word post on adsense just last week then the week prior I had to pay another 1200 for a new site of mine since I look at it this way why do the work myself when i can pay someone to build it for me with out the hassles

[TheCren]

I just read a post on here about outsourcing to New Zealand: How to Outsource to New Zealand Students

[Thomas]

Originally Posted by The Oilman

I was jut wondering where the US dollar is worth the most in other countries?

Or -- in other words, which country has the cheapest labor.

Are those two sentences the same or different? I dont know.

Do you mean what is the buying power of a U.S. dollar in other countries? If so, that's a bloody hard question to answer, as it depends on so many factors.

If you're looking to pay someone outside the U.S. to do IM-type activities for you, it would be an easier question to answer if you mentioned what country they are in?

In much of Europe, a dollar will buy you less than it would even in the U.S. but in, say, Sub-Saharan Africa, it might buy you an amount of goods or services that might cost $10 or $20 or even more in the U.S.

The best answer is: it depends.

Tommy.

[edpudol1973]

Well I guess Philippines is one of the best and cheapest place to outsource

[Ciaran Doyle]

I definitely agree that the Philippines is probably your best bet. Try searching for people to actually work for you instead of just hiring them from elance or RAC.

Look on actual Philippines job boards.

Hope this helps

[alambains]

I would recommend phillippines too!!!

[morwanneg]

My copywriter is from Philippines. I must admit her english is excellent. Far better than mine. Ironic isn't it? LOL.

[tyroneshum]

Hi everyone,

I think the question to ask is what is the best value of labour for your money?

Cause as people have pointed out, there are going to be cheap labour throughout the world, India, China, Philippines and so forth.

In my personal experience I've personally been only hiring from the Philippines and it's because yes their labour is cheaper in comparison to 1st world countries, but their ethics, loyalty and their English, especially is of high value. Which means that the work is done properly and on time.

I've been able to hire full-time staff for $250 per month as well and they do an exceptional job. Though I know you can hire people for less from India, but from personal experience, the work has not been of the same standard.

In saying this, I recommend seeking people in the Philippines and finding people with good English verbal and written skills. With this you should get good value out of your money and in return great work completed.

[uniquecontent]

I think Philippenes

[uniquecontent]

I think Philippenes has least.

[jpattric2]

Originally Posted by uniquecontent

I think Philippenes has least.

I agree .........

[AFD]

Originally Posted by OmarNegron

not to sure on the country...but Scriptlance has some great deals as to what I have seen.

I hired someone from Scriptlance after geting a sample... but the actual work sucks... There's a lot or words I don't even understand (or I think used improperly) that I had to ask him to rework or else he will not get paid... For cheap with higher quality, I think Philippines is still the best option...

If someone really needs an excellent content for standard price of $4/500-word article, use http://cyberhubonline.com/. Their quality of articles are real top notch and all of my suggested keywords are used without messing-up the whole content... Their writers are English... I only use them for EZA articles but for all other articles for other directories, I pay $1.5/300-word for someone from scriptlance.

I think Philippenes
I think Philippenes has least.

I agree .........

I don't see any substance on both comments... can't even pronounce Philippines correctly, eh!

[blackcat123]

I think India is a good place to outsource your work. I don't know whether it is the cheapest place around but you can get most of your work done for a cheaper price. But be cautious when you dealing.....

[badboy_Nick]

Originally Posted by The Oilman

I was jut wondering where the US dollar is worth the most in other countries?

Or -- in other words, which country has the cheapest labor.

Are those two sentences the same or different? I dont know.

India is a good country to outsource some departments to ... but I don't think this discussion can be held ethically, really. Cheapest labor for US Dollar? How about a sweatshop in Taiwan? I know NIKE likes these kinds of practices.

[francoza]

I think Philippians and Indian people are very cheap. You can outsource your work form there.

People even have companies that are situated in these countries but belong to UK or USA.

[madison_avenue]

On a site called freelancer.com there are people offering $1-$2 per 500 word article which seems very cheap. I am not sure what the quality is like though.

[robrave]

yeah, Philippines is one.

Well we are educated and can do things pretty good if instructed very well.

[MarkAse]

I don't know if I'd be looking for the cheapest necessarily (you'll see offers for under $1 an hour from places like Pakistan) but the quality/price is what is important to me. For that, it's hard to beat the Philippines in my experience.

[aaallday2010]

It depends. Cheap doesn't necessarily mean bad quality.

If you're looking to get some coding done, then I've had good success with the Vietnam and India.

If you're looking for something that involves writing (such as articles), I would stay away from India. Their grammar is terrible.

Hire someone from the Philippines instead.

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by FreelanceSally

My only advice is that you get what you pay for. Cheap price, cheap quality.

This puzzles me a little: isn't the meaning of "cheap" itself defined, in those circumstances, in terms of the local economy, so that when you outsource a service to somewhere without a "Western economy", in local terms you may actually be paying an "expensive" price rather than a "cheap" one? I'd always understood that to be the rationale behind such international outsourcing, anyway.

I get nearly all my off-page SEO done for me in India (though that's by no means the cheapest labour in the world, albeit that the computer/internet professionalism there seems well advanced), at very much less than it would cost me in Europe or America, and that's certainly not "cheap price, cheap quality": it's very high quality indeed, but the price I'm paying for it all, though "cheap" by my standards, is a lot of money in India. Isn't that distinction the whole point?

[jennypitts]

I have to agree with Alexa, it is a matter of rhetoric and interpretation. Cheap to us in the US may not be cheap to others, with regards to cost of life, etc. And does not necessarily mean cheap quality.

It also depends very much on WHAT you are outsourcing, and what your particular needs are. I have to also say that is a matter of trial and error. I have hired quite a few different programmers, and SEO people from India, and Southern Asian countries and the quality has VARIED dramatically. I have had GREAT quality as well as terrible work which I have had to pay even more money to have someone else fix it. I have hired a lot of my freelancers through scriptlance and getafreelancer and I have to say that although I continue to use programmers from India, when it comes to my writing, I stick to native English speakers and writers, even if it entails having to spend $15 or more on an article.

[seasoned]

Originally Posted by The Oilman

I was jut wondering where the US dollar is worth the most in other countries?

Or -- in other words, which country has the cheapest labor.

Are those two sentences the same or different? I dont know.

The two are TOTALLY different! HECK, a dollar has ALWAYS bought a dollar in the US. EVEN after inflation, a dollar would have bought FAR more labor in the 60s! JAPANs currency has always been FAR less than the dollar. A yen is besically like our PENNY, and worth about the same. Apparently they get paid VERY well though, and prices are just that much higher.

You can buy 18,994.9 vietnamese dongs for a dollar though. I don't know if that is the lowest, but it is LOW! I hear they DO have low labor costs also.

Steve

[karlp295]

I can recommend VMG BPO they are fast, relable and cheap and have foreigners working there so the english skills are no problem. Very good payment thru paypal etc...

I have no connection with them but they are helping me Oilman.

[jamespitt]

As I spend most of my life in the Philippines, I'd have to say it's tough to beat it for great quality people to work for you at a good price.

In fact, if you really wanted to get some of cheapest people in the world, if you really knew where to look you could find them. But - you'd have to speak the local language(s) and give up on paypal. It would be a lot more hassle for you to cut the cost from to (say) $50 a month, which is where the salaries are going to be at their (very) lowest. You're going to be having to find people totally in the provinces or at university. Both of those groups have a bit of a habit of vanishing. You are also strictly-speaking breaking the law & paying below the minimum wage.

A lot of this is about how much you value your time. If you want a hassle-free life, you use someone like my company, much as you could use a contracting company to get staff in the US/UK/etc, but you pay more. There are good quality people you can employ direct but demand a good wage and are hard to find, if you want to save money. If you want to find yet cheaper people you're going to have to spend more and more time finding them and training them up. As you want to pay less, the amount of hassle goes up and up.

[Alexa Smith]

Talking of outsourcing labour to foreign parts (and who isn't, these days?), I just had a sales phone-call an hour ago from my ISP, offering me an upgrade from 20 to 50 MB/sec download speed on a 12-month contract with the first 6 months at a very low charge (as they do), and the man had quite an unusual accent I couldn't place, so after accepting their new service I asked him which country he was originally from, and to my surprise he said "I'm calling you from Manila in the Philippines - we make all our call centre calls from here now".

[dvduval]

You can find cheap labor in almost any country. Keep in mind that as people develop they become worth more, so if they are cheap, that usually mean they are not all that well developed in their business yet. If they are good, eventually they will charge more.

[oggobis]

Originally Posted by tyroneshum

I think the question to ask is what is the best value of labour for your money?

Vote this for the winner.

*

Philippines eh? New info for me.

[Traffic-Bug]

When it comes to outsourcing, cheap doesnt really mean cheap quality. Thus it is against 'you get what you pay for' syndrome! As for recommendations for cheap labor countries, I think Pakistan has one of the cheapest rates around. Philippines and India are very popular destinations also.

[Monika Mundell]

Originally Posted by FreelanceSally

If you want to outsource writing to someone in a third world country, good luck with that. My only advice is that you get what you pay for. Cheap price, cheap quality.

Yep I certainly agree with your quote. I also think that hiring cheap labor is not always the smartest thing to do. Sometimes it is justified to pay more!

This whole cheap labor thinking has really diminished the true value of good website content and I have a feeling that things will change in the not too distant future.

I'm not saying that outsourcing to cheap labor countries is a bad thing to do Quite the contrary. The question you should ask yourself before outsourcing is "what can be outsourced without damaging my online reputation?" and to whom can I outsource this?

For example:

Outsourcing any link building and SEO work to countries like the Philippines and India is pretty much risk-free as these guys really do know their stuff.
Outsourcing writing to these countries is a huge risk - you could be extremely lucky in finding a great writer, or most likely find yourself having to edit most of their work.

Monika

[moxxom]

Philippines and India was good for freelancer,..its worthed price for their job..

[whateverpedia]

Originally Posted by The Oilman

I was jut wondering where the US dollar is worth the most in other countries?

Or -- in other words, which country has the cheapest labor.

Are those two sentences the same or different? I dont know.

The answer to the first part of that question is going to vary from minute to minute. Check any forex site or Yahoo finance to see how much any currency pair can fluctuate on any given day.

I notice you mentioned "cheap labour", and not "the best value". Two entirely different things. As others have pointed out, ya gets what ya pays for.

My experience is that the cheapest deals require more time, effort and yes, money to make things right than it would've taken to do it properly in the first place.

[sober]

Philippines is said to have quality workers who are not only good with their English but have high work ethics also.

[Deepak Media]

I am from India and I do recommend India for a balance of quality and price. I have tried a few countries and I outsource many of the works to my own country. Some jobs like logo design etc. I outsource to USA.

In the big picture, internet is like a single country... just see the price and quality and do what suits you. It does not matter whether the person working for you is in North Pole or New York.

[oyim2000]

Originally Posted by Deepak Media

I am from India and I do recommend India for a balance of quality and price. I have tried a few countries and I outsource many of the works to my own country. Some jobs like logo design etc. I outsource to USA.

In the big picture, internet is like a single country... just see the price and quality and do what suits you. It does not matter whether the person working for you is in North Pole or New York.

I totally agree with you India would certainly come number one as they have lots of highly qualified and educated workforce out there.
The very fact that most of the international big business or corporates outsource their work to India speaks volumes about the quality and its effectiveness.

[Matthew Duggan]

Originally Posted by FreelanceSally

If you want to outsource writing to someone in a third world country, good luck with that. My only advice is that you get what you pay for. Cheap price, cheap quality.

This is a good point. I outsource to the US for my writing stuff. For programming and web design, I'd suggest the Philippines.

Post your job on Elance.com and you'll get an idea for different countries and their general pricing, etc.

[Mark Blaze]

I tried that link to that job center in New Zealand and gotr refused as your not allowed to hire per job and only $12.50 minimum per hour!

Also no out of country.... but still sounds like a good country to outsource too in order to get a english speaking worker.

Anyone got any other sites similar?

Mark Blaze

[thetrafficaddict]

For outsourcing writing, web design, virtual assistance, and customer service, Philippines would be your best bet. They've got highly talented people there for pennies on a dollar.

Ethical? Yes, cause it's a win-win situation. You make money, and they get paid.

[CSVAS]

There are cheaper outsourcing companies than Philippines but you won't get the quality you are expecting.

[Worthen]

I have 2 full time guys in India. And i pay them much more than you would expect, plus the top guy gets a % of profits. I always like to have both a minimum salary and a incentive for them to do better.

Those 2 do a great job, but i never had much luck hiring part time programmers from India through Scirptlance and i have dozens of completed projects there. My best value in programmers came from Canada and Russia. Right now i have a part time programmer in Indonesia that is both good and very affordable.

I have expansion plans and yesterday offered 2 more guys and one girl in India, jobs. I also found a guy in Philippines that i am talking to and hope to hire him full time too.

I live in the USA and i was grown before i seen a person of hispanic decent in my area, and now some small towns have over half the kids as Mexicans. And as a group, they are the nicest, hardest working people i know. Of course for our purposes we need them to speak English and many don't, but i bet they are a good place to look too.

In the future i plan to check out Bangladesh as someone here recommended and focus on India and Philippines. Some of those Central American countries should be good too.

And lastly, it depends on if the person already has skills and can step right in and start making you money, or if they have to learn things and it's going to be a speculative play if the ever earn a roi.

Peace