Do you feel comfortable hiring at $1-$2 per hour?

They're the ones who are choosing to offer their services for those prices so what's the problem?

$1.2 is low, even in third world countries. Consider that they have to pay their internet bill, electricity, food, rent and so on. If they're offering their services for that amount of money if you don't hire them, someone else will.

If they're doing quality work for you and you appreciate it, offer a pay raise.

They need the money and offered to work for a minimum wage. Would you be happy at a minimum wage job and retire there? I sure wouldn't. But a decent wage doing something I like, I'd be there all day with a smile on my face.

Better paid, happier employees stick around longer and work harder.

Take a look at how Google treats their employees. They do everything they can to increase employee moral.

Now take a look at Wal-Mart.. they do as little as possible. They pay minimum wage and cut employee hours at 38 hours so no one qualifies for benefits.

HOLY CRAP I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M ABOUT TO SAY I'd rather be like google. /facepalm

Most people offer their services that cheaply because they don't have the confidence or marketing chops to get a decent price for their services, and that's not just confined to 3rd world countries.

Most of the complaints that first world service providers have circle around Elance and Odesk having made charging a real price untenable, which is really just the other side of the same coin, that they are unable to market their services properly.

Do you have an obligation to pair a fair wage even if the provider offers a basement rate? Probably not, at least IMHO you don't have any moral obligation, but at that low a rate very few people in any countries are going to be able to survive, and so you'll only ever get relatively short term unskilled labor.

If you're cool with that, then go with it, but I prefer using my contractors over the long term which means that I pay a rate that I know is sustainable for them wherever they live.

Am I comfortable with paying such a low rate? No, not really. Without being to soppy, my "sleep at night" alarm would be going off if I was paying those sorts of rates, but that's just me.

Also, sometimes you get what you pay for. I hire on Odesk and often pay between $8-$12/hr.

Yeah. Its all a gamble. I had a situation where I hired someone overseas at $5.00/hr and someone state-side for $20.00/hr. The $20/hr state-side guy got it done in an hour, and was top quality work. The $5/hr overseas guy took 4 hours and the work wasn't really up to par. So all in all I paid the same amount for both guys and got better work from the stateside guy. Now this was specialized work using a specific program (not just "hey write me an article" type stuff).

But your results will vary. What I *WILL* say is hire 2 people. Especially if they are only 1-2/hr. What do you have to loose? Hire 2+ people for the same job. Its a great way to pinpoint good workers. You can also get an idea how long something should take (if 1 person takes double the time to get stuff done, you know there is an issue).

I pay according to geographical areas. If the going rate in Asia is 2.00 bucks I pay 3.00.
I thought about this for a great while at first not feeling good about it.

Do you know in some of the countries a Nurse or Teacher makes 300 a month and even less. Im a U.S. Nurse and would never work for less than 65,000 a year and thats a desk job, think about it, If I use one virtual worker and pay them 120 a week and the professional income there is 400 a month, I just put them in the upper middle class there.

Also I get these freelancers saying hey hire an American ect. We can't afford Americans, We have caused such an inflation on everything that it would be impossible for us to pay someone 20 30 bucks an hour or even the low ones at 7 bucks to do our virtual bidding and make money at it.

So no I do not feel quilty,

I'd feel very uncomfortable about it.

I can defend it, of course, on "free market" and "global marketplace" lines, as we all can, with all the perfectly logical and reasonable economic/commercial realities, some of which have already been mentioned above, and more of which will doubtless appear below.

But, rightly or wrongly, I'd still feel very uncomfortable about it.

I employ two full-time virtual assistants, in different Asian countries, with slightly different skill-sets and experience-levels. I pay one $3.00 per hour and the other $3.50 per hour, each on the basis of a 35-hour working week, and I contribute a little, separately, toward their computer/internet maintenance costs, too. I don't feel at all uncomfortable about that, because I think I'm treating them with the respect due to them.

It may be the most money they can get at the place and time they are at. The situation may be desperate., and that could be driving the bid price down. Not hiring them doesn't help them.

The best thing to do would be to pay a bonus however you can within their system, if the work warrants it. If you can contact them, you could hire them (yourself, directly) at a higher rate.

One thing I appreciate about the net is that it brings more of the world together. You can use it to help out.

I had one girl and man was she great, I gave here such great recommendations some company in Canada hired her out from me.

Anyways when she started with me she was always asking me to front her. After the first month everytime I called she was at a steak house eating with her husband lol.

Yeah I like to pay a dollar higher than what they are asking. If they do good work for 2 dollars an hour give them three, if three give them four etc.

If they deliver high quality work, offering them a pay rise is logical

If they are new, I love new people. The way I get good ones is I look through the bios on odesk, Invite them to bid, give them something simple and a timeline for an interview.
If they do good I hire at a cheaper price, if they do good they get consistent raises and get more than they were asking at the beginning.

If you lived in a hypothetical country where minimum wage was $50/hour, would you feel guilty outsourcing work to the United States at $10/hour?

You aren't forcing these people to work at your pricing. Whether they decide to come work for you or not is 100% their decision. We're all adults here and should be able to make those decisions for ourselves

I think the only thing I have a hard time with are my American peers who yell, why not keep the work in the U.S. I do feel like the U.S. needs work but man we created this overinflated economy with the politicians we voted for and everything else. I'm not going to suffer on my business cause some factory worker gets paid a union hourly rate of 30.00 an hour to sweep a floor. Not fair to me or my customers at all.

For me, it depends on what it is. There's no way I would ever outsource writing to anyone other than a native speaker and native speakers don't normally charge rates that low.

Usually, people from other countries often inject their own English, meaning, I can almost tell which language is their native one by looking at how they form sentences. Their copy may not be grammatically incorrect but sometimes it's just ODD.

Plus, I am a writer who is a native English speaker so if I outsourced I'd want someone who wrote as well as me!

But for programming, design work, etc? I might if I were sure that the rate they were charging is considered a good wage in their country and not a slave wage.

I have no problem to hire someone for $2 per hour.
But, if it's long term relations so i'm raising the price cause I want him to be loyal.

Anyway, nice point.

If you feel uncomfortable with paying $1-$2/hour, then pay more. You have the choice of doing so.

From the POV of a contractor looking to earn more than $2.00/hour, the problem with oDesk is that most employers who hire from there are looking to pay very low wages. Looking for a $20.00/hour job, or even an $8.00/hour job, on oDesk is like (to paraphrase Mike Royko) going into a bar and ordering a glass of milk.

I wouldn't hire an article writer for $1.00/hour, or even $8.00/hour, not because I have a moral problem with paying that low, but because it's highly likely I'd be paying for garbage content, riddled with spelling and grammar errors. While there is a tiny probability that I'd find a "diamond in the rough" who is truly skilled but suffers from low self-esteem, that probability is too tiny for me to waste my money. I may as well buy lottery tickets. Or take the $5.00 I'd pay for a garbage article (or a bunch of them) and get a hoagie...something I could actually use and enjoy.

If your website is earning really well, then it could be too low.

I have in the past hired people for $0.11 an hour, and I have hired people at $20 an hour, it all comes down to what the person wants and is offering.

I am looking for someone to do some social bookmarking for my website, any suggestions? Where did you find these people for $1-2 an hour? I would pay at least $5/hour if they are willing to work for that little of $

No. You get what you pay for. Treat your business like a loved one. Would you trust a $1-$2 an hour nanny with your child?

Hi,
I guess it would depend on why you are hiring them. If it's for writing articles, in my experience, they don't use proper English and you would just have to re-do the work. If it's technical work, then, how do you know if they are capable of doing a good job?
If it's really good work and you don't mind giving them extra money, then do it.
http://www.geririchmond.com

You always have the option to reward a person.

There's a guy who uses my Fiverr arbitrage methods and he feels the same guilt so he offers rewards, with the latest being $70 for a $5 job that was done brilliantly.

There is business and there is morality, dignity and generosity. It's the perogative of each and every person to do what satisfies them in accordance with what they can do and what they are willing to do.

Note the term "rewards". It's not all about adherence to cost of living which seems to be an excuse that's slung around a lot as a means of justification.

If business was all about spending as little as possible to get as much out as possible (in direct relation to business) corporate charitable contributions would not exist.


Daniel

It's normally much cheaper to hire someone at a higher rate than to hire the person who charges less. Let that sink in.

I like to pay per project as opposed to per hour.

I also charge per project as opposed to per hour.

I have looked on Elance and most from those countries (like Pakistan) seem to charge closer to $10 minimum.

I am about to hire around 50 people to do some work for me for 5-10 hours overall.
For such kind of work, I believe lower rate is more like a good deal for you.

Though, I do believe this rate is way too less in any country and they should consider increasing it.

If it's of a high quality, why not. How would you know? It wouldn't be very expensive for you to try. For you to trust a person you should trust them first. You can never know if they can be trusted without trusting them in the first place.

If they felt that they needed or could ask for more money, then they would do it. Someone else will hire them sooner or later, even if you do not do it, so why not make yourself a favour and work with them? It's not like you're offering them those prices!

Its way bellow the expectation and i wouldn't pay that low considering that they also pay their bills
Though its always their choice to charge that low to attract more clients.......
:confused:

The issue you get a lot of the time with odesk is the thought of automation, the whole point of paying a person is to avoid automation.

Personally I have no moral objection to hiring someone at a rate which THEY propose. Of they do a good job then offer incentives. I normally end up paying a little more as I find the people who charge less typically do not deliver the quality that I need for most of my projects.

A lot of people work in the United States for $2 an hour.

Some doctors in India make under $3,000 USD per year. A good doctor that serves the upper class and people visiting from the west is around $20,000 USD per year.

That should put some things you see on these forums involving Indians into perspective.

Some doctors in India make under $3,000 USD per year. A good doctor that serves the upper class and people visiting from the west is around $20,000 USD per year.

That should put some things you see on these forums involving Indians into perspective.

I sometimes feel guilty, yes, but then I remember that their cost of living is much lower in India, the Philippines, etc. They can buy a decent meal for only a dollar or 2.

Anyway, if they do a good job and follow my directions, I almost always pay them a little extra (a tip).

No. I wouldn't hire anyone for less than the minimum wage where I live, which is $8.95/hr.

I wouldn't expect anyone to work for less than I would be entitled to if I were employed by a company. I figure if I'm making more than minimum wage at my own job, then I can afford to pay someone I hire the minimum wage where I live.

Since I'm not willing to hire someone for so little, I generally have a strong preference for native English speakers as there is no misunderstandings and communication tends to go more smoothly.

I realize there are people in other countries who speak English as a second language and speak/write it better than many people here in the US who have lived here their entire lives. If such a person came to me, I would hire them no problem. Do I have time to comb hundreds of foreign candidates for that rare exception? No, not really.

The thing is, I wouldn't expect the quality I'd be looking for if someone were only being paid a couple bucks and hour to do the work. And if it was that quality, I'd feel like a douchebag for paying so little.

Nothing wrong with others doing this if both parties are fine with it, but that's just my two cents.

Also, some more perspective:

"More than one-half of the world's people live below the internationally defined poverty line of less than U.S. $2 a day—including 97 percent in Uganda, 80 percent in Nicaragua, 66 percent in Pakistan, and 47 percent in China, according to data from the World Bank."

Source: http://www.prb.org/Journalists/Press...ugust2005.aspx

Its really a hard fact that people are working at very less wages in these countries.
There are certain reasons for that. Their economy, their lifestyle or basic requirements are far different than other European or any other countries. You may believe it or not the basic salary of a IT engineer starts for $200 month. And low class daily workers earns and survives with around just $100 per month.

And the major impact what's happening is the buyers try to bargain more and more nowadays as they can save a lot. Eg. if you post your services for say some $100, Instead of inquiring about the service we get replies saying "why is your price so high, when some other guy is providing the same for just $20". The point here is the guy who provides the cheap service doesnt know the value of it or they compromise with the quality. So whom does this impact ultimately is the ones who know the value of a service and want to offer a quality service.

There is no end to it until the buyers stop searching for "cheap services"

One of my first projects as a freelancer involved me having to do some basic data entry work. Since I had no ratings on Vworker.com, I decided to bid $2 per hour. I got the job and worked at it for 200 hours.

I believe it is exploitation to pay such a low rate to workers. People don't bid these amounts because they are satisfied with how much they are earning - they do it because they literally have no bargaining power.

If I would've asked my employer to raise my wage to $3, he would have shown me the door and asked one of sixty other people who had bid $2 to carry on where I left off. It's your choice if you want to exploit people in the marketplace, but don't feel proud that you have gotten a great deal.

Lets look at this from an economic stand point. US Dollar = 98.75 Pakistani Rupee the average yearly medium income across the population is $1,207.00 USD Per capita income rises to $1,207 - Newspaper - DAWN.COM

So realistically they make what you make at $10.00 an hour at our US average median income.

I think you are most likely being over charged !
Those hourly rate just were raised and were .40 cents and 55 cents a hour but odesk just raised all their hourly rates so that odesk can make more money not because the lowest qualified person is worth more..

With thinking like your's I am surprised you are still in business...
Someone agrees to work for you for a set rate and you feel its not enough ?
Thats crazy thinking ....

9 out of 10 times the person you are hiring is making more money then you because their cost of living is less.

Most of the stuff in your house was made from people making $4-5 a day, do you feel uncomfortable about that? People in poor countries welcome that $2/hour which allows them to leave those sweat shops or rice fields.

That dollar goes a long way, more than it does here in the U.S. The minium wage may be $7.00 an hour here in the U.S but a gallon of milk is $4.00 and may cost 50-75 cents in that country.

You can always reward them with a pay raise,

your not the pope you have a business to run if you didn't hire them for that they would work for the same from someone else who wouldn't feel bad.

Don't focus on the amount per hour. Focus on the PRODUCTIVITY. Even if someone were to charge you 50 CENTS per hour, you'll still LOSE if the productivity or QUALITY isn't there. Clear?

Having just joined ODesk I was blown away at how low people were bidding for jobs as VA's & WordPress assistants. I thought that Fivver was the place to go for cheap staff! How can I or anyone else compete with rates this low. In the US, England or Australia $1.00 per hour is just not an amount we can live on, let's face it we don't live in third world countries. So the only way for me or others like me to make any money online is to go into competition with these people and try to build a reputation. I understand that people will pay the lowest possible price for staff. The question I ask is how good are these staff at those rates and how many jobs are they doing daily? Anyway to each his own, but it's certainly very disappointing from my point of view and I've got to admit to being surprised that ODesk allows it.

Most of the work is utter mediocre at best. I wouldn't even hire most of them for $1. It costs me more in terms of money and time dealing with them.

Man,, I felt bad at first too but most of them are not even worth that. You really need to find special tasks for them like copy and pasting . Odesk is all about building profiles , Everyone has to start at a dollar an hour, You know how many guys I was the first one to hire and now they got their rate up to 5-10 dollars an hour.

If they do good work and add value to your business...TIP THEM!

I am from India and I want to put my thoughts. The reason for this is High population and Unemployment. Companies are paying so little to the workers. only 150$/month. That is the biggest reason they are charging so little. If they earn 50$ a day then its better than working for a stupid company who pays you 150$ a month.

$1/hour?

Can anyone show me a link of a freelancer that works at a decent quality, actually saves me time instead of adding more (by having to explain ten times) and is reliable?

Damn I'll pay him $2/hour. I'll pay him $5/hour.

The problem was that everything under $5/hour was very unreliable, $5 - $10 - somehow and over $10 decent work for VAs.

I've paid in the past anything from $5 to $50/hour. Almost always, I got what I paid for and for anything under $10/hour, it was faster and easier to do it myself.