Is this ethical?! This guy is paying his outsources <$2/HOUR!!!

I Agree with Andy.

I have been to china four time in my life matter a fact I started a company out there four years ago. $2 and hour USD is good for them if you paid them $2 in there own money that ripping them off and that is unethical

Agree totally.

Adeel

What services do you offer?

$2.00 to you might be nothing more than a candy bar and a soda. To someone else it might be a way to feed their family. In parts of some countries $2.00 an hour is actually a lot of money.

I think I may be getting exploited. I'm paying my VA from the Phillippines $4.40 per hour. But she's a quick learner and a good writer, so I'm not complaining.

Pay rates are all relative. If people can earn a decent living and are happy making $2 per hour, I think providing them with work is ethical. It's not like outsourcing computer work is a sweat shop job.

In Manila, minimum wage = $8.90/day (at $1 = Php45)... and in other big provincial cities = $8.40/day...

...these are hard labor and blue collar employees like carpenters, plumbers, construction workers, cooks, waiters, security guards, cops, firemen, auto mechanics, electrical technicians, etc.

White collar jobs and others on the other hand pay $15/day minimum... these are entry-level teachers, phone customer support agents, phone tech support agents, email support agents, content writers, nurses, dentists, physicians, etc.

Entry-level programmers, engineers, chemists, biologists, medical researchers, etc. = $20/day.

Senior content writers, editors, programmers, tech support agents, trainors, customer support agents, marketing agents, graphics designers, Web developers, etc. = $30/day minimum.

Senior engineers, chemists, biologists, teachers, surgeons, lawyers, etc. = $40/day minimum.

"Minimum" for jobs other than hard labor and blue collar jobs mentioned above = They won't work below those rates.

"Minimum" for hard labor and blue collar jobs = Employers are required to pay those rates or more per 8-hour work day.

You can however easily do this here: hire a 20 to 30-year old Filipino with irrelevant work experience and knowledge worth 2 years at $10/8-hour day, train this person to use the computer and do your tasks, and provide on-the-job training and management, but this person won't be able to write effective English content for you though - it'll take this person 1 year of extensive training to have substantial English writing skills and at least 6 months of extensive training for effective English speaking skills, nevertheless = you can properly communicate in English with this person through text or voice chat since this person statistically has substantial English comprehension skills right from the start... also, Filipinos = no accent whatsoever, only in rare cases, mostly Filipinos in small provinces.

I think: (1) initially paying your firm-trained and managed Filipino employees higher rates than standard local rates and (2) not focusing on training and managing them yourself are better options for businesspeople who aren't running manpower sourcing, recruitment, employee training, business management and consultancy services.

Why?

It allows you to focus on other things which can grow your businesses.

If you constantly train them to do a task using these particular set of methods, also leaving you without time to focus on other areas of your businesses as mentioned above, then when they become proficient in those methods, the industry could've changed substantially for your method to no longer be as effective as before.

If you focus on training them on your own while paying less, then they will leave you the moment they learn from you and find a different opportunity which pays higher rates.

They will also leave you for better opportunities or constantly work on other projects from other businesspeople if you pay them standard local rates but without employee benefits, on-the-job training and management, a rewarding and competitive life-work balanced office environment with useful tools and resources which can improve their skills faster, have them work alongside their colleagues and seniors who they learn from and look up to, rewards and incentives as well as fast promotions for exceptional work, character and mindset formation sessions, personal and company goal developmental sessions, etc.

Hope this helps.

Any business owners job is to get your services at the lowest price they can. It is the job of the employee to get the best price they can for their services.

If someone sells themselves short or accepts less than their worth that is not unethical because they are the ones who set their price.

When you set your price for your product you are giving an estimate of what you think the market will accept, starting at the highest and working lower and the market tells you what the final price is.

When hiring, your are giving an estimate of what their services are worth starting at the lowest point and working up higher. It is the market who tells you what the final wage is.

Selling an ebook for $15000 is not unethical if you suggest a price and the market accepts.

Hiring someone for a penny an hour is not unethical if the market accepts.

You lower or raise your offers based on how the market responds.

This is just how business works.

Aaron

Dont worry.. it would make no difference even if they are told

In a free market economy, people have the freedom to accept any job that they want to do. If my living expenses weren't so high, I would not worry about accepting less money. I broke my back when I was a kid at an electrical supply house for $4/hr. and it was brutal. $2/hr. to sit at a computer is a good job in some parts of the world. After all, every single one of us with a JOB are paid peanuts when compared to how much money we create for the company WE work for. Are people with a JOB being exploited?

TomG.

Hi,

That's a helpful message. You are helping the people who want to know what the cost of living is in other countries. To me that seems a good way to judge what to pay. In a 'free market' you can get people selling their time too cheap because they are desperate, and living below subsistence level. Many people want to avoid paying too low, and you have helped. Aceriker and Lakshay and others too.

And yes, I agree with the person who says, you can always show your appreciation upon completion of a good job by giving your outsource freelance a bonus.

Sir,
Im from the philippines, will you be surprised if ill tell you that 1-2$ per hour is quite a big amount for a freelancer? If somebody will pay me $2 per hour while staying at home ill be very happy for that. Telling you this, a regular employee here is paid for 7-8$ for 8 hrs of work. So if that guy is paying $1 per hour ill still go for it,since it is a homebased work and i dont have to spend for my transportation anymore and much more if he'll pay me 2$ per hour. Ive been doing captcha projects from india, i have a team of 20 people and to tell you this our client was paying us less than a dollar for every 1000 coded captcha. But still there are people here that are willing to do the job than doing nothing at all. Now can we call this exploitation? and sometimes you have to stay awake for 8 hours to make 1000 captcha if youre in evening shift. But that only shows that we are hardworking people. And any work will do. As long as it's legal.

AGREE!!!

That's what I was thinking the whole time -- and was scanning the thread looking to see if someone else had said it before posting it.

Sometimes the "privileged" countries can't see how 2/hr is successful for some...

Makes you wonder if he couldn't bump it up to $3 an hour and be a hero

Stand up for yourself and quit! :-)

It is perfectly ethical. Why? Because $2 is 98.3238 PHP ( Philippines Pesos) at a rate of 1 USD = 49.1619 PHP. I made a Google search and found that the minimum hourly wage is 50 PHP. By the way the median hourly rate for software programmers is 135 PHP=$2.75

I feel the same way, but remember this- you may be paying someone less in one country and more in the country..

And you have to factor in cost of living. The person you are paying less can very well have a better life because of the cost of living offset.

Its a BIG WORLD out there..

I see a problem when the work environment and tasks required go against the basic principles of human dignity - such as is often the case with the sweatshops that sometimes make the news, or even back in Canada where you will often find nurses forced to work double or triple shifts.

This impacts the quality of life of a person the most - not the amount of money given to them for a task, but how the said task is going to reflect on all other aspects of their lives.

Following the model of free competition, as income flows into that area and uses up the available resources (peoples time), the prices will rise. So, sending $2/hour to a lower priced market is helping raise that groups prices and will make it "fairer."

That will lead to inflation, and higher prices for those who cannot perform services. Thus creating more pain and misery for some.

And then, is it ethical to ask me to take money from my pocket, which I need to purchase goods and services necessary for my existence, (food and shelter being the main application.) and pay more than is negotiated, in order to increase the income of someone else, whose needs are less expensive?

The creator of this thread is displaying the class prejudices of someone who has reached a comfort level beyond their feeling of self worth and is trying to assuage their "guilt" by pontificating about ethics.

Jeez

In an EXTREMELY OVERSIMPLIFIED manner, this is what ethics means to me...

"Do No Harm"

The problem with your questioning of this guy's ethics is that you're considering your reality and what you would consider to be harmful to you and trying to apply that same standard to someone on the other side of the world. A person who has a different reality and a different standard as to what is considered harmful to them.

Your judgement seems to be clouded by using a fixed universal context. Which is certainly not the case.

I think the solution is simple - share your knowledge about how to make more money online, so that poor outsourcing staff finds out how to earn more than $2.

They will stop doing that instantly, if they get an option.

Whats the quality like a $2 per hour?

What's with the word "ethics" today? It's being tossed around a lot.

Anyways, the word capitalism comes from the fact that entrepreneurs capitalize off the labours of others. And, if we can get workers willing to work for $2/hour it means we can capitalize off that. If you want set wages and controls on how we pay people, it means we have to invite Karl Marx and Co back again.

Also, I've slung heavy hay bales for $2/hr. It was the early 1970s, and I was getting paid a lot more than my buddies in the city.

To be honest, $2.00 over there is like $25.00 here, so no, it's not unethical. That IMer just found a better way to profit, more power to him.

And that is what actually happened to the website industry, you had people from other countries do it really cheap because of the money exchange value.

Why would someone pay $300 for a website, when they can pay $100 to someone in another country...

I do not think it is unethical if the person agrees to do the job for $2.00 per hour. If the person who was outsourcing the job forced the individual to do the job for $2.00 per hour then this would be a different story.

I am a freelancer. I do web design. I set my own rates. I can charge anything I want. If I choose to charge $2 an hour I may be foolish but it has nothing to do about being ethical or not if you use me.

On the other hand if you somehow force me to accept a rate that is lower then I would rather work for but maybe somehow you coerced me and I feel forced to take it then that is where I think ethics comes into play.

Clark, then it is probably only applicable in the province of Quebec and our public health care system.

I've been wrong before - but I DO know first hand that it IS a huge issue back there (Quebec).

It seems useless, and completely out of topic to argue with your bookwise, which proves to be completely disconnected from the current reality of the public healthcare system as it is - so I'll just leave it at that and invite you to come over and spend some time Quebec, get to know a few people working in the public health sector, and make your own mind on the issue.

Okay.....I am going to chime in here....

If someone accepts a certain amount, then that is their business.

Can I use a different perspective?

If I tell someone I charge $400 for a freelance project, then that is the amount of money I have determined I need in order to make an acceptable wage.

Now, if someone is living in an area where you rent apartments for $2000 a month, they might think, "How on earth can she charge that? How can she live on that?" But, for me, $400 is a very nice payment.

I do not expect a person living in an area that has a high cost of living to answer, "No! I insist on paying you $1000 because there is no way you could live on $400!" (Not that I would mind....:rolleyes

I guess what I am saying is that the wage is really determined by the freelancer, not the person offering the freelance work. The freelancer is the one who decides whether or not to accept a certain wage. The freelancer is always free to say, "No, thanks. That's not enough."

JMHO

you got what?

Personally, I'd rather pay two people $2 than one person $4 - that way there's two happy people (make that families) instead of only one (IMO it also gives the local economy a more effective boost when two people earn an income instead of one higher paid person)...

+1 to Mike.. Infinite Unresolve

I would support someones feelings of ethics, if they are genuine.

Unless you buy A-L-L your personal products from ETHICAL manufacturers who pay a decent wage, (good luck), don't point fingers.

Anyone who buys Nikies and shop at Wal-Mart and other related type goods are at least doing two things:

1) supporting slave labor and almost inhuman work conditions

2) eventually putting yourself, your economy and your areas economy out of business, what business in your area can compete with $2/hr labor? Relocation of that job and labor is inevitable .

So we should not complain to our government when we help the problem. Saying I don't have time to know where everything I buy comes or reasonably deniable ignorance is no excuse, I'm as guilty as everyone else.

From who picks your fruit and vegetables in the field, to everything else, we support it with our dollars, knowingly or not.

Very few of us, if any do due diligence of ethical products we buy from raw material stage to end product, not to mention union made products. We simply won't buy it.

Ethical product A)-with ethical labor from raw material to end: $30.00

UnEthical product B)-with slave labor and inhuman/unsafe working conditions: $4.00

Wal-Mart owners and the like are Billionaires because of our choice, don't deny we would not and are not buying B.

The sales and labor relocations don't lie.

Just live with the consequences when the world ecomony continues to spiral and collapse, because most companies are looking to relocate and pay desperate people in the jungle somewhere $.10 and hour....keep finding new, lower paying jobs until it collapse, never being able to retire, have some entreprenur success until money gets so tight, that even marketers start falling by the wasteside like the banks and mortagage companies.

Who made money in The Depression?

In the Depression, at least their was still industrial revolution, manufacturing,innovation and expansion, jobs created.

That's not going to happen again.

Even if NEW technology was discovered, why pay someone in your area $20.00 an hour or more when I can go to some mudhut residence and pay .03 cents an hour and be considered a hero there, with the blessing of the goverment and diplomatic immunity status, a celebrity. That's if they even have a government.

If I was a greedy, self-centered , all about the money and numbers,period, type of employer in the 21st century and beyond, why would I EVER go to a progressive country for labor when I can go to India, China,and probably somebody on Mars who is gladly willing to work for .05 cents an hour in the most unsafe and worst human condition they will tolerate or can legally get away with?

The 13 th Warrior

Me too. Ten 500 word articles for $30, and the writer is from Britain.

Stupid?!?

Yeah, exactly, I totally agree, " IF " the above illustration is accurate.

How about this? How about NOT playing stupid and acting blind to justify the means to the end.

It's all about BALANCE. So there is NO such thing as a middle ground, a happy medium?

Simply can't stretch the imagination to something pragmatic, and rational, for whats needed or could be of some real use at the time.

Here's an example: Some dude came up to me, asking for money. I said money for what?
He said he was hungry. So I said, if I buy you some food, you're cool? He said yep.

So I bought him a meal , that I, myself,would've eaten had he refused it.

Should I have bought him Lobster and Steak? No, not even rich people do that everyday. Most folks, rich or poor eat at regular places , on average, like everyone else.

I looked at him eat it, and it was smelling so good, I ordered the SAME thing for myself.

Balance. Not in necessarily extremes all the time, one side or the other.

There is a fair, reasonable solution without the extremes, if one but took the time. But if you consider a that a waste of time, then that is your belief.

If you simply do what you honestly can do within reason, and its from the sincerest heart, you will find a way.

Do what your heart and conscious tell you, good or bad, it'll manifest out eventually.

The 13 th Warrior

Also, just to add some informations in regard to hiring filipino freelancers:

- Even here in the capital, it is not unusual for the internet to be down for hours on end, sometimes even a whole day. Expect it and account for it when dealing with deadlines (I found that one out by experiencing it myself, thank you).

- Filipinos love holidays. So much they have one almost every day. Ok, that wasn't true, but still, there are lot of holidays here where people will want to take often a few days off to visit family and relatives, especially if they live around the capital and the rest of their sibblings are still in the province.

- Employers here are required to provide a "13th month pay" every December, which is a bonus at least equivalent to one month's salary to be paid to all full-time employees. Of course, working with freelancers make that one optional, but I would encourage anyone to keep it in mind nonetheless.

Hope this helps
Alex.

Perhaps I am wrong here. Maybe I am. I just fly off on a frenzy when "exploitation" is a possiblity.

$2.00 an hour, if thats what is talked about, is about what it was in the U.S. around the 1960's and early '70's, and if you are talking about similar conditions, work and the like, the U.S. then as in the phillipines now, then you are correct.

If you are talking in relativity, phillipine economy about 40 years behind, but parallel, then you are right.

The 13 th Warrior

You reiterated a point that has already made countless times in this thread, but if you just wanted to brag about dating a hot Filipina actress I can respect that.

Chris,

I need to correct myself. $28/hr is the average base wage. (I make that mistake often in this particular discussion, and end up correcting it.) When you add in overtime and the like, it comes out to closer to $39/hr.

Still a long way from the $70-$80 bandied about in the press lately, but it's important to be as accurate as possible when talking about numbers. I tend to agree with that, as stated.

There are other reasons to pay more, of course. For example, if you get someone who is especially good and you want to keep them working for you, paying them more than the market rate is one excellent way to make that happen.


Paul

Chris, Thanks.

Hey... what are you doing reading that on a Sunday? Go watch football or something.


Paul

Double post -deleted.

Sal, we may never agree on this, but I do respect your point of view.

In my opinion though, it is completely biased. Is it more ethical to give job to someone in your neighborhood, or someone on the other side of the planet? Of course, you'd be happier to know a relative got that job than a complete stranger, but that's where emotions come in, and emotions clouds logic.

One worker equals another - we're all human, and we've all got families to take care of and feed. On the other hand, if outsourcing in a different part of the world allows to feed twice the number of people, should we feel bad about losing "our" jobs?

My father, when he was 58, lost his job at the factory he had worked for for over 20 years. The work was moved to a different province to save on taxes and wages. I'm not even talking about a different country, just a different province.

Obviously, at 58, there was no way he would find another job soon. The company offered to re-hire him if he decided to move and re-apply for the new factory. Needless to say, he declined the offer. The first 6 months were not without stress for my parents, but it allowed them to reassess their needs and motivations. Now, my father is happily retired and swears he'd never want to go back to the life he used to live back then.

We have the luck of living in "developed" country, where education is at our fingertips. We are living in the information era, and people have to get on with the change. If your job is taken away, maybe it's time to find something else, a reminder to always seek improvement in all areas of our lives ...

RDG, depending on the area, especially in the south, yes, kidnapping can be a real threat here in the philippines.

If a high school teacher in a certain country makes $1.20 an hour and you pay them $2.00 to work for you, is that a slave wage? Of course it isn't. In fact, it's a very good salary.

Would you rather that I hire someone else and the person who wanted to work for $2/hr doesn't get anything?

And then there's the true question we all have to face ...

What's in it for me?

So you would rather see someone go hungry or lose their home?

You are only thinking of your own situation and not others.
In some countries to pay someone $2 an hour is a very good wage.
If someone is happy to work for $2 an hour why deny them work because of some silly opinion about what people should be paid.
People should be paid what they ask for and what they are worth, if they are worth more then they will get more.

I took on a writer a year ago she only wanted $2.50 an article, i gave her $3 as i liked her work and now i pay her $4 an article

I don't know why this thread was revived because it seems that both sides of the argument have been covered extensively.

I don't think it matters where anyone lives. If person "A" wants to hire someone and person "B" wants the job and they agree on a price, how can the amount they both agree on be considered unethical?

Some people will argue that $2 per hour is taking advantage of someone. Others will argue that, if the person accepts the job it can't possibly be unethical and still others will argue that $2 per hour in one place is like $20 per hour somewhere else.

There, if anyone reading this started with this post I just saved you several pages of reading.