Rates ... fees ...

English: title page of the catholic bible translation into German from Hieronymus Emser, an opponent of Martin Luther; published 1527 in Dresden, Saxony Español: pagina principal de la traducción católica de la biblia en alemán de Hieronymus Emser, un adversario de Martin Luther, publicado 1527 en Dresden, Saxonia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Saint Jerome in his Study, fresco by Domenico Ghirlandaio, 1480 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I don't know about everybody else, but whereever I look, whoever I ask - it is always "lower your rates", "sell your product (=translation) cheaper", "give us your "best" = cheapest rate" .......

Well, maybe nobody has noticed, but the costs for our daily living has and is constantly INCREASING. Right now, they decided in Japan to raise taxes. One of those taxes that applies to everything -> thus making EVERYTHING more expensive.
If somebody asked me to name a product or service that has actually become cheaper over the last 10 years ..... I would have a really(!!) hard time to think of something.

The funny thing is, that the market(s) for cheap translation labor (like Proz.com) are INCREASING their fees too.

Somehow this does not match.
We (translators) as service providers are forced to constantly lower our rates, while the agencies (I am rather sure they do) and the websites all raise their prices / fees.

This will very soon lead to translators falling below the "break even" point, where they just cannot to "afford" working as translators any longer.
What remains in the translation industry? Google translate??????
I pity the customers ........

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Cheap bus tour results in an accident killing 7 people

The other day an accident occurred on a Japanese highway, killing 7 people. The driver of a bus - a driver hired by the day - fell asleep. Apparently, there was no co-driver on the bus, and the entire tour designed to be "first of all cheap", specifically targeting Chinese customers.

The accident is one thing, but what struck me this morning was a TV show where one of the commentators said:
"It is this fierce competitions nowadays for providing cheaper and cheaper services/product, REQUIRING to cut costs where　ever possible, to has finally led to poor safety measures, the use of insufficiently qualified personnel etc. that led to the tragedy"

THIS sounds like something that could be applied IDENTICALLY to the translation business:
"lower your rates", "cut costs", "do NOT charge extra for rush jobs etc.", "no special expertise needed (= everybody can do it = makes prices cheap)".

Well, I tried to point this out many times already. Cutting costs to the bone, forcing "real" translators into starvation etc, WILL in the end lead to the use/employment of untrained, unskilled personnel with "no special expertise", whose inadequate translation make even lead to the death of people. Who knows??

Is THAT what clients want? It will certainly give them a few headlines.
Starving the real people in the end will force them to "recruit the crew for a space shuttle from a pool of cheap physical laborers with no special expertise". It will definitely cut costs, but will it benefit the space program?

Expertise - no expterise

Academic Book Stack (Photo credit: phonono)

Crimson Interactive (also known as Edisense, India based translation agency)

This company CONSTANTLY posts "job offers" on various sites, always offering hundreds of thousands of words = large volumes. Whether this is true or not is not really interesting here. (I have worked for them before. there were never any "large volume jobs". NATURALLY, after I started to work it did not take long before they started asking me to lower my rates - which I already DID set a little lower than the Japanese rates.)

The interesting thing is, the posts ALWAYS state at their top:
"Expertise:     No special expertise"

but a little further down it then ALWAYS (this text is ALWAYS IDENTICAL):

Description: ... This makes the position challenging ...
Eligibility Criteria:
• Should have minimum 2 to 3 years of experience in Academic Translation
• Should hold at least a bachelor's degree in any field
• Expertise in academic subjects
• Certifications in translation and/or academic translation would be preferred

Well, to me THAT looks definitely like "special expertise"!

Or am I missing something important here? Do not understand the text maybe?