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> Workers were paid between $1.46 and $3.74 an hour, according to a Sama spokesperson. I don't like how journalists never adjust the salary when doing those co
by belval 3y ago
> Workers were paid between $1.46 and $3.74 an hour, according to a Sama spokesperson.
I don't like how journalists never adjust the salary when doing those conversions. Yes $1.46 in the US sounds like the most abdject poverty, but Kenya is not the US. The minimum salary in Kenya is $1.05 so even their lower bound is 39% higher than the minimum salary with their upper bound being 358% higher.
For job that while psychologically scarring for some, does not require any education aside from being able to read, that really doesn't seem that bad.
- JKCalhoun 3y agoI don't think anyone would dispute that these are not decent wages in Kenya. What is embarrassing is that the corporation seeks places where wages (relative to western wages) are this low (for what also amounts to the bullshit work).
- AYBABTME 3y agoWhat's embarrassing about it? Don't you shop around when you need to hire a contractor or buy a car?
- JKCalhoun 3y agoBuying/paying local helps my local economy.
- AYBABTME 3y agoI think there's times where this makes sense and times where it doesn't. Your local economy is probably better served by being paid to do something else. They probably have a comparative advantage at doing another activity. You'd be better off paying into your local economy where it makes strategic sense. We're not talking about exporting critical manufacturing skills here. We're talking about doing a crappy job that's only worth doing and paying for if it's dirt cheap.
- memefrog 3y agoNo it doesn't
- webdood90 3y agoIMO You should be upset with capitalism, not the company.
- capableweb 3y agoWhy not both? Capitalism for encouraging this behavior and the companies for engaging in it.
- baron816 3y agoYes, it’s terrible that people in low income countries have jobs.
- syntheticmindai 3y agoIf you worked for Sama and was sent to work in Kenya, would you take a salary cut just because your cost of living has reduced? Pay people what they are worth, not based on where they choose to live.
- cowsup 3y ago> If you worked for Sama and was sent to work in Kenya, would you take a salary cut just because your cost of living has reduced? These people weren't "sent to work in Kenya." They already live in Kenya, and are getting wages that are typical of jobs in Kenya.
- therobot24 3y agoin general, there's an economic argument to be made that if you pay disproportionate wages for unskilled labor then there will likely be less skilled labor (doctors, engineers, etc.) in the market which can cripple the ability of the area to grow past unskilled work
- bobjordan 3y agoIf a worker effectively performs the required tasks for $1.46/hr, this demonstrates the work's intrinsic value quite explicitly. The onus to make a higher wage to improve their lifestyle is on the individual, given the freedom they have to allocate their time as they see fit. It's not incumbent upon others or businesses to pay more for tasks if a lower-cost, higher-value solution exists.
- zzzeek 3y ago> It's not incumbent upon others or businesses to pay more for tasks if a lower-cost, higher-value solution exists. in the US, we've collectively decided (through elections) that there should be a minimum wage, from which it follows that we've also decided that the "wages have no bottom" argument, i.e. they should be able to go as low as possible without limit, is unethical and detrimental to society.
- bobjordan 3y ago
- giraffe_lady 3y agoidk man psychologically scarring sounds pretty bad to me that's not normally a thing people are wanting from their job.
- skim_milk 3y agoEmergency responders have to deal with what I'd imagine the typical person would consider traumatic but we've agreed that their jobs are necessary in order for society to be efficacious. Not everyone has the same physiological response to disturbing content and it would appear people that take up these distressful emergency jobs are less likely to ever even have any traumatic stress responses in some studies IIRC. Maybe up to 33% of the world's population would find reading text triggers traumatic stress responses if I had to make an educated guess - not to diminish their experiences. But I'd imagine most people would just find the job boring or somewhat nauseating. Should be trivial to significantly reduce human cost without completely removing their jobs anyway.
- giraffe_lady 3y agoYou don't perceive any significant difference between emergency work and AI training moderation?
- xboxnolifes 3y agoOne of them seems to have actually traumatic situations.
- giraffe_lady 3y agoThe potential harms of reviewing fucked up material even fictional are well attested. It's factored into law enforcement & child porn investigations and has been for years. I am assuming you knew that though, and just enjoyed this little moment of belittling someone for their suffering. Hope it was nice. Hope you're having the day you wanted to have.
- alephnerd 3y agoTo all the pissy commentators on here - Average Monthly HOUSEHOLD Income in Kenya is around $145/month [0] The fact that Sama's STARTING SALARY is almost $300/month is staggering. That's the equivalent of being a SWE in the US (around $140k median salary) when the median salary in this country is around $65-70k/yr. Also, at $300/month I could hire plenty of English speaking moderators and labelers in Central/Southern Phillipines or Madhya Pradesh/Bihar and not have to deal with level of instability Kenya has. They're honestly lucky Sama even chose Kenya as a base to operate instead of going with Infosys or the Pinoy equivalent (if anyone has experience with the PH BPO industry, I'd love to learn more) [0] - https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/economy/kenyans-average-income-of-sh20-123-hits-six-year-high--4043204?view=htmlamp https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/economy/kenyans-avera...
- erikpukinskis 3y agoAverage and median are different.
- dragonwriter 3y agoMedian is an average, just like the mode, arithmetic mean, geometric mean, harmonic mean, etc., are, even though most of the time when “average” is used without specifying which one, its actually the arithmetic mean.
- alephnerd 3y agoIt most definetly is. And given that Kenya's Gini coefficient is 51.3, that means the median Kenyan household is earning less than $145/month, which only shows that Sama is paying competitively at the national level.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- bitshiftfaced 3y agoIncome distributions have fat tails, so the median is less than the average, which only amplifies grandparent poster's point.
- Groxx 3y ago(I have edited to flesh these out a bit more, but have stopped since there is a reply) I've kinda waffled in my opinion of outsourcing through the years, but one issue I keep coming back to is that you can trivially view it as massive, intentional wage suppression. "It's cheaper to live there" yeah, I wonder why that might be. The numerous unbelievably wealthy global companies all doing this in the same very specific areas surely have the area's best interests at heart, and want to raise its standard of living, so it must be something else. "No education required" because they don't have enough to fund education or provide alternatives that could let them fight back on this exploitation. And it also provides leverage for suppressing wages elsewhere, because companies can always just offshore work that their peons are demanding fair wages for. --- And, yes, it also brings a lot of outside wealth into those areas. At high human cost, but still. idk. I do find myself leaning more and more towards it being almost universally a bad thing though. Particularly when they keep saying it's a highly exploitative thing, when they manage to bust through to international news.
- KptMarchewa 3y agoIt's almost exactly a good thing though. >"It's cheaper to live there" yeah, I wonder why that might be. It's incoherent reply - if a job does not require high qualifications, besides language knowledge, going for cheapest place is the obvious thing. >The numerous unbelievably wealthy global companies all doing this in the same very specific areas surely have the area's best interests at heart, and want to raise its standard of living, so it must be something else. They are all paying more than local alternatives, thereby increasing local wages. > "No education required" because they don't have enough to fund education 3 dollars per hour is more than Polish minimum wage 10 years ago, and we funded education with much, much less. But I guess no foreign company should invest here? It would leave us in a way better place for sure. >And it also provides leverage for suppressing wages elsewhere, because companies can always just offshore work that their peons are demanding fair wages for. Once the same propaganda you're spewing was playing for Asia. It turned out globalization really made them comparatively rich. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/global-income-distribution.jpg https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/... Now it's time for Africa. The same argument is now even more incoherent - where's the cheaper place? >And, yes, it also brings a lot of outside wealth into those areas. At high human cost, but still. At the cost of... work.