I have a special post that I want to share with everyone today. Honey Amabelle Young, a Filipino outsourced worker and the administrator, forum moderator and all around take care of business person over at EasyOutsource is my guest poster today and has written a wonderful, enlightening piece in which she shares the view from the “other side” of the outsourcing equation.
“A Filipino freelancer’s thoughts on outsourcing”
Outsourcing is growing in leaps and bounds these days, and not just outsourcing but outsourcing to the Philippines. That means good news for me, a Filipino online freelancer.
I consider the proliferation of outsourcing a blessing. Not only does it help the average Filipino earn a living, it helps the entire economy of our country. I am also very thankful that people from all over the world are recognizing the traits of Filipinos that make them very good workers.
I decided to become a freelancer around two years ago and have been the website manager of EasyOutsource for a year now. I have never regretted my decision to work from home ever since. What I did notice, though, is that compared to two years ago, freelancer rates are a lot lower now.
When I started freelancing, the lowest rate a freelancer from my country charges is $2/hr. The rate then varies depending on the type of work and the amount of experience a freelancer has. Nowadays, I can see freelancers charging lower than $1/hr. What brought about this change?
In my opinion, both freelancers and employers are to blame for this decline in rates – employers, for offering to pay low rates and freelancers, for accepting and agreeing to work for these rates. I cannot speak for employers, but I can speak for freelancers.
Coming from a country of more than 94M people, which produces 380T college graduates a year, you can imagine the stiff competition in the work force. While some graduates successfully enter into 9-5 jobs, a vast majority is left unemployed. Combine this with the popularity of the world wide web, with many households equipped with PCs and an internet connection, your result is the average Filipino online freelancer.
More and more people are resorting to working online, thus the number of competition is growing each day. As more people compete for a job, rates will naturally be leveraged for one to rise over their competition. This is the easiest factor to adjust, never mind that the more important ones like skills and experience, are more essential in online work.
This plays on the fact that the average employer is trying to save money, precisely why they resorted to outsourcing as opposed to hiring a local. In this scenario, no one can be blamed. It is the basic law of supply and demand.
Some people are saying that employers are exploiting Filipinos by giving them unreasonably low compensation. The operative word here is: reasonable. Moral obligation dictates that we do things within reason. That the Philippines is a third world country and the cost of living is a lot lower than that of more developed countries is a fact. Therefore, it is reasonable to pay a Filipino a lower rate for the same amount of work than say, an American. That is reasonable, and not exploitation.
When you start to do things that are out of reason, like paying a Filipino freelancer a very low rate because you were told it was ok and accepting that as gospel truth without investigating the matter yourself, then the problem begins.
So how do you know which rates are reasonable? It is not enough to know the country’s minimum wage and adding a little to that to determine a freelancer’s rate. You have to take a lot of other factors into consideration.
First, you’d have to know for which types of work is the minimum wage given. Second, you’d have to consider the fact that freelancers incur overhead expenses that an office worker does not – like electricity for the usage of their PC to do online work, the monthly cost of an internet connection, and training that they may have to pay for themselves.
You’d have to figure all of these in determining the reasonable rate to give a freelancer. Stay within reason and the success rate of your working relationship with your Filipino worker is likely to go up. For your guidance, you may check my post on reasonable rates to give a Filipino online freelancer.
There’s no denying the fact that our country is a goldmine of working online professionals. It is also widely known that a lot of Filipinos are intelligent, hardworking, and loyal. The quality of the work we render is comparable, and sometimes better than freelancers from other countries that charge higher rates. All these, and more, make me very proud to be Filipino.
Author’s Bio:
Honey Young is the manager of EasyOutsource, a job site where the workers are all Filipino. She is a Filipino online worker that was hired by the site owners, Matt O’Brien and Michael Eisenwasser. Both Matt and Mike are American web developers who created EasyOutsource because they found that Filipinos are the best people to outsource work to.
Who knows, maybe this will turn into a regular guest spot for Honey. For those of us who appreciate and take advantage of outsourcing to the Philippines…understanding how the other side feels and thinks can only help us to succeed in our outsourcing ventures.
Thank you so much Honey!
Don’t forget to visit Easy Outsource. They continue to improve their services more everyday. They already offer an awesome place to look for and hire skilled workers, an informative blog and a forum where you can post an questions, successes or concerns you may have.
Recently they added a new service I would like to make you aware of. They now have a section called “Easy Hire” for all those who don’t have the time…or possibly just don’t want to search on their own. There is a fee attached of course but for those in a hurry this could be the icing on the cake.
EasyOutsouce is free to join.
enJOY your week-end coming up everyone 
Kathy *
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