Yes! I appreciate the legal issues here. Maybe no names of companies will help, more a percentage or number of clients in connection to how they deal with this thorny issue
What an interesting topic. Might have to get a green card.
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Why do you think the big studios used to lean on London so hard for their huge head counts?
Donāt quite understand the question.
Talent is inexpensive and plentiful after features in the UK dwindled, driving down wages, so its common to have large studios in London with 300-600 people, and much smaller satellite offices where wages are higher.
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Not many people in film continued into advertising at least with those I know.
Why did we accept lower wages? Fuck knows. Too polite? Believed Pat Joseph too much? Not everyone has been a tool like me though. @Jonhollis went on to form Smoke and Mirrors (right?). Dave Smith opened Absolute. Giles went on to open ETC. Neil left to make Untold. And there are other success stories of boutiques in London. But I think the market was just a lot more honest in the US. You want me, you pay me. Itās a different attitude. When I was Mill SG I didnāt earn what Angus earned.
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Well if you found out how much money I spend on health insurance each month for my family of 5 youād lose your mind. Itās always different. Itās always messy.
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Thatās very true. Swings and roundabouts.
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Lookā¦ Iām going to put it simply for you.
You arenāt wrongā¦ but the way to do that is very simple. Be social within your community, make friends and talk.
I am in Toronto, Canada. I know all the shops locally, and they know meā¦ furthermore, I make it a point to stay in touch with any and all the other freelancers in town, when they cooperate. If I meet a new guy, I take his info down. I am also not afraid to reach out to someone.
It is in our best interests to try and stay on the same page, or close when it comes to billing and how we treat these clients. That being said, you will find some disinformation from time to time and just have to use your own common sense. When my clients reply that Mark & Jack are both charging more than 50% less than I am in town (true story, diff names) then my response is that that is their business, and their decisionā¦ but THAT is NOT the rate in town. Just because 1 or 2 people are dumb enough to offer it, doesnāt mean you do too. They canāt do all the jobs, and let them work 2 and 3 times harder and more than me to make the same amount of money. Continually lowering your price is a race to the bottom.
So my advice, start branching out and try to meet/talk to more freelancers, aka NETWORK.
Once youāve built a network youāll find just how easy it is to know the difference from each companyās dealings. Personally, I do a LOT of ADSā¦ and this is no different from how all the shops communicate with all of their competitors. They keep it friendly, and share experiences (within reason of course).
This business is ALL about your network. Without that, you arenāt working.
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In an effort to better support our distinguished Logikians from Europe, how should we better break down the Regions? Some artists are concerned of privacy, as, Spain and Germany have few Flame Artists.
Does anybody wish the survey were different in this regard? How can we better serve the European Flame community with solid information, but retain privacy? Any thoughts?
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Greetings everyone. As we approach the end of 2021, I encourage everyone to fill out the Anonymous Wage Survey. If you filled it out last year, awesome. Fill it out again for this year!
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Done!
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wheres the link to do it again
found it here
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Also, for those that are commenting about requiring multiple rates or offering multiple clients multiple services in multiple regionsā¦well, thereās just no way to easily build a survey that takes every possible scenario into consideration.
So, if you offer multiple services, consider filling out the form multiple times. If you offer the same service in multiple regions for multiple rates, consider filling out the form multiple times. That will be the only way that we can one day graph/chart/measure/include temporal data.
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Bump. With recent 2022 inflation, please take the time to fill out the survey again. Even if youāve already filled it out, filling it out again with updated information lets others know what is happening right now.
I also fully recognize its a hot mess to read but Iām slowly working my way through that and all the amazing comments and suggestions.
Donāt forget. Your employers count on us not being well organized to drive down wages. You should be discussing wages with your co-workers and filling out this wage survey. If you arenāt doing both, then you arenāt helping overcome decades of wages falling behind.
Thank you.
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Also. Iāve received some feedback to split the EU market up a bit.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to best split up the EU market? Are specific countries helpful?
How would this make sense? @finnjaeger @Sean1985 @hildebrandtbernd @johnt @SalWilson
i have 0 idea, it took me quiet a while to even try to compare wages from US to Germany.
As like in germany the employer paysā¦ a bunch of stuff and taxes and whatnot without you ever seeign that in your payslip. like you earn 3000ā¬ a month before taxes thats probably more like 5000 of what the employer pays for you total, and then of course a way different terms of benefits and healtcare and college fees and whatnotā¦ its like a completely different distribution.
I was like WOW earning 80K sound ridicolously much for someone in germany but in the US thats like basic Sysadmin/Comp stuff , but if you add it all up costs for healtcare and saving for college/paying college depts and whatnot it becomes crazy difficult to compare as you start looking at quality of life per dollar earned and that stuff is so not easy to quantify, like if you have a family its probably better to earn a lot less but be in germany because of high costs for college and schools and preschools and doctors, while if you are single its probably better to be in the US or something i mean againā¦ thats from my own math comparing job offers in the US vs Germany and the amount of money i need to earn in the US to have the same securities and āquality of lifeā things that matter to me (30 days of vacation 1 year of paid parental leave stuff like that) i would have to earn a LOT more in the US than in germany to the point where it wasnt worth it but totally would have been as a single guy.
Hope that makes sense I thought about this a lot between germany and the US but EU wide I have noā¦ clue!
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