Minimum rates should be implemented

playjoy · ‎10-29-2021

Supposed 'clients' keep try to get unrealistic, disrespecting, aweful low rates.

$0.01 / word for translation? You know what that means?

300 words/hour is the translation industry average. Let's say Upwork freelancers are somehow able to go very much faster at 500/hour.

500 * 0.01 = $5, upwork takes 20%, so I receive $4. I'm Dutch, and you wanted a Dutch native, so here I am. So in euros that's about €3.3. Statutory minimum wage is €11/hour, so that means the rate is illegally low. That's what it means, that you're not even on half of a legal rate. That means you think your translator doesn't have to eat, that his/her spouse doesn't have to eat, that their children don't have to eat. That maybe, just maybe from your rate, they might be able to rent a roof above their heads.

Want to know what realistic is?

€11 = ~$13.1/80*100 (upworks fee) = ~$16.5
16.5/500 = 0.033/word -> that's your unreasonable low balling price which gives speed, not quality. That's your absolute minimum for any translation from a Dutch native.

16.5/300 = 0.055/word -> that's your legal price which still gives you speed, and a bit higher quality than the absolute minimum.

The translation industry average is $0.10/word. That is a reasonable rate which provides you quality as it provides the translator to self-review.

So if it's not implemented, my call for all translation clients is:
Stop the begging, start paying realistic rates. There's a reason statutory minimum wages exist.

If you're not willing to offer legal minimum rates:
You're seeking a**Edited for Community Guidelines**, not a freelancer. Put your job where the sun doesn't shine. And take a good look in the mirror to see if you're any good to the world.

A moderator changed this post's forum from client to freelancer. Apperantly they don't want anyone to ask for a decent pay. Apperantly you're not allowed to say your mind about the disgraceful rates to the peope proposing those rates.

prestonhunter · ‎10-29-2021

Upwork is not going to implement minimum translation rates because this is not a translation website.

And no, you can not extrapolate niche-specific experiences, make some calculations based on your personal perspective, bring in geography-specific numbers, and conclude that something "illegal" is happening.

I know that you are sincere. But you are writing from a very specific perspective that does not reflect the broad spectrum of how Upwork is used. Many people work on Upwork in places where they money they earn is quite excessive and potentially disruptive to their communities.

And when you talk about needing money to feed people... It shows that you aren't thinking about the Upwork users who really don't need the money to buy food or pay for housing, but who use Upwork more for lifestyle reasons than for economic reasons.

I believe that with each passing year, an increasing proportion of Upwork freelancers are people whose material needs are already provided for, and they work on Upwork for other reasons, such as social interaction, adventure, entertainment, self-improvement, etc.

playjoy · ‎10-29-2021

It's not personal perspective.

You can simply look up the facts.

Rate per hour was even low balling if you really calculate the average:

https://search.proz.com/employers/rates

Here you see that their calculator starts with 300 words/hour. Why would a professional translation community do that, you think?

https://www.proz.com/translator-rates-calculator/

Dutch minimum wage

https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/minimumloon/bedragen-minimumloon/bedragen-minimumloon-2022

You can very easy find tens of other sources for these facts.

But aren't you ashamed as 'community guru' trying so easily disregard a proper argument against the disgraceful practice of underpaying on this platform?

And put the post back on the clients forum. It's a message to the supposed 'clients' not the freelancers, they know.

prestonhunter · ‎10-29-2021

You keep talking about translation.

This is not a translation website.

Upwork is not going to change its general framework to comport with your job niche, geographic idiosyncrasies or personal preferences.

playjoy · ‎10-29-2021

The translation is an example. Other jobs are not different.

I've seen people are asking to get a game developed for $8...

Putting up websites for that same price.

Look at the NFT craze, everyone is wanting to get in, no doubt seeing the millions that get earned. But for those potential millions they're not even willing to pay a decent living wage for the programmer.

I'm sure you know your way around the job list. Look at it. Look at the rates.

prestonhunter · ‎10-29-2021

Erwin:
Upwork already has minimum rates:

$3/hour for hourly contracts.

$5 minimum for a fixed-price contract.

If you believe that these minimum rates should be changed, you are welcome to advocate for change. You are welcome to use this thread to suggest changes you think Upwork should make.

But it is factually incorrect to say that Upwork doesn't already have minimum rates.

And its factually incorrect to say that Upwork is doing someing "illegal" based on your calculations about how much it takes you to do a very specific type of job (out of thousands of job types) in one specific country (out of a couple hundred countries) that Upwork represents.

playjoy · ‎10-29-2021

Well, good!

Did not notice that.

But yes, that needs to be raised, obviously.

a_lipsey · ‎10-29-2021

To the OP, I understand your concern, but realize, even IF Upwork implemented a minimum rate for translation, the low ball clients wouldn't suddenly decide to pay higher rates. They would just go somewhere else to find cheap translators. As Petra said, cheap clients are not your target customer, so don't worry about what they are offering to pay, they want cheap and fast, not good and fast. I'm sure every freelancer here wished they could enforce a minimum rate, but there is no way to actually enforce it. The clients would just leave.

Remember that while there may be 50 jobs in your feed this morning, only a portion of those will be jobs posted by your ideal client (maybe only a fraction). Ignore the others - those are someone else's clients.

petra_r · ‎10-29-2021

Amanda L wrote:
To the OP, I understand your concern, but realize, even IF Upwork implemented a minimum rate for translation, the low ball clients wouldn't suddenly decide to pay higher rates. They would just go somewhere else to find cheap translators. As Petra said, cheap clients are not your target customer

Thing is... there is little on the OP's profile that confirms that he is a "translator" - it even has the dead give-away of offering translations into his clearly non-native language. Professional translators quite simply don't do that.

So the high quality contracts with the professional clients willing to pay the decent rates may be beyond his reach.

moonraker · ‎10-29-2021

Erwin B wrote:

500 * 0.01 = $5, upwork takes 20%, so I receive $4. I'm Dutch, and you wanted a Dutch native, so here I am. So in euros that's about €3.3. Statutory minimum wage is €11/hour, so that means the rate is illegally low. That's what it means, that you're not even on half of a legal rate.

Upwork is a global marketplace, and the laws where you are don't apply to everywhere else. For you and I, that money isn't worth logging in for but for a lot of people, it will at least help to pay the bills.

Increasing minimums won't suddenly make clients start paying more. They'll just take their business elsewhere, meaning fewer jobs on Upwork for people at the lower levels.

If you see a job that pays too little for you then just move on. Nobody is forcing you to apply for it.

martina_plaschka · ‎10-29-2021

Upwork is a US company, they don't care about the minimum wage in Denmark. What is little money for you, is reasonable for somebody living in a country with much lower wages. You are free to not apply to jobs that don't appeal to you.

roberty1y · ‎10-29-2021

If you're a good translator, you're not competing with people charging $0.01 a word.

petra_r · ‎10-29-2021

Erwin B wrote:
300 words/hour is the translation industry average.

No, it isn't. Maybe for difficult legal or medical traslations. And if it was, how come you translated 1200 words in less than 2 hours?

Erwin B wrote:
Apperantly they don't want anyone to ask for a decent pay.

Nonsense. You can ask for decent pay. Bid your price when you apply. Negotiate. Don't accept any $ 0.01 per word contracts, if you can justify decent rates. Problem solved. Also don't accept poorly paid contracts and then praise the client for how well they pay...

It's irrelevant to me what low-level clients want to pay. Those clients won't hire me any more than my kind of client will hire the $0.01 a word "translators".

If you can sell your expertise to the clients who pay the decent rates, they pay them. Happily. One of my favourite clients told me "I can't afford to hire a cheap translator"...

A moderator changed this post's forum from client to freelancer.

Your post was moved because it is a freelancer issue, not a client issue. You are not a client. You are a freelancer. It's actually a "non-issue", if you know what you are doing.

And "minimum wage" doesn't apply for freelancing, let alone on a global platform.