Would YOU Work For Free?

Yesterday, I was helping a friend of mine set herself up with a few of the mass hiring websites. She is a writer as well as was looking for a few short-term positions to get her through Christmas with her 4 small children. I was shocked at the rates that were posted for jobs. And not in a good way either.


Who in their right mind would work for those wages? What type of person/company could honestly sleep at night, knowing they were paying mere pennies for long hours and hard work? Sometimes we all have to take a cut in pay in hard times but this was outrageous. Need examples? Here you go!

Job One: Full-time virtual assistance-5 days per week for a total of 30 hours per week- maximum payment available $2.75 per hour


Job Two: Article writer- 30/450-600 word articles per week/ $1.50 per article maximum payment


Job Three: Copy editor for small website- 35 articles edited and published per week- maximum payment .75 per article

There were thousands of jobs like this paying barely pennies for large amounts of work. The saddest part of all is that these postings had a hundred or more bids from people wanting the job. Maybe I am expecting too much. Maybe this is the norm. But just because you work from home or most of your work is online doesn't mean you shouldn't be paid fairly.

The people posting these jobs should be ashamed. They expect top quality work. Many of these job postings said things like "Only hardworking individuals willing to work 40+ hrs per week need to apply." and "Do not exceed the maximum pay rate or your application  will not be considered!" They want the very best but only want to pay the very minimum.

This spreads like an infection. If there are a thousand other job postings getting by with paying 10 cents for 100 articles, then other recruiters are going to follow suit on the cheap wages! Eventually, sites like these will offer nothing but this type of poorly paid opportunities. 

I know this is more of a venting post than an informative. If this were the only jobs available to me, I wouldn't be able to provide for my family even if I had 40 of these jobs at one time! I'd do better to return to the land of the living for employment than to fight with tons of others for the barely there income.