I have been working as a Japanese web content writer, and I realized there is a very harsh reality for freelancers in Japan. Freelancing platforms are typically useful for freelancers to find jobs, but they aren’t truly helping in the Japan case. In this article, I would like to share with you an unbelievable reality of Japanese freelancers.
The current general amount of payment for freelancers on Japanese freelancing platforms
First, let you look at the image below.
This is the freelancing platform popular for Japanese freelancers. The red numbers in the middle of the image indicate the payment for each writing job. Most of those are written as “1 JPY per character,” but they are actually much lower-paid than normal. By the way, if it replaces the current USD value, 1 JPY is approximately $0.00625.
According to my research, even beginner freelance writers in English-speaking countries are paid more than $0.05 per word. In short, Japanese freelancing platforms are filled with cheaper jobs that aren’t even close to those. Yes, there are only beggars pretending to be customers.
It’s too early to be surprised. Such low-paid jobs as “1 JPY per character” are just one part of all. Rather, there are many much lower-paid jobs beyond those low-paid jobs on freelancing platforms. For example, the following jobs are visible.
Could you notice what is happening? Surprisingly, most of the payments written are showing “lower than 0.1 JPY per character.” Unbelievably, they indicate lower than one-tenth of what I mentioned earlier.
Of course, individuals with common sense wouldn’t apply for such terrible jobs. However, entry-level freelancers can’t realize these unfair payments, and some of them will also apply for them. Japanese freelancing platforms are just barely maintained by beggars who prey on beginners.
To be honest, I can’t understand why these freelancing platforms try to maintain themselves besides putting this much burden on freelancers. At least, I won’t want to use such terrible freelancing platforms anymore. Whatever, the payment for Japanese freelancers is dropping without limit due to existing platforms that are flooded with inhuman jobs.
Maybe you all feel enough, but other fraudulent jobs actually exist that plot the exploitation of labor in a more cowardly way. In the concrete, there are also ugly jobs that cheat by assigning a fake assessment test to freelancers and defrauding them of deliverables for unbelievably low pay.
For example, the project in the image plans to implement a pretest for freelancers to write an article (2,000 characters), and it will pay 10 JPY (0.062 USD) per article. I say that again, it will pay 10 JPY freelancers who write a “2,000-character article,” not “a character.” I’m not sure how much value character is anymore.
They are significantly beggars, scammers, or just ignorant about business. I surely assert that it is a complete mistake that such suspicious individuals can easily enter the marketplace. As you can see, Japanese freelancing platforms are useless for freelancers. I sincerely hope that the same platforms in foreign countries won’t become like Japan’s.
How hard are Japanese freelance writer jobs?
The difference between Japanese writers and English writers can’t be seen so much. It seems English writers can write 300 words per hour when they need a deep search. Japanese writers are also almost the same; to be exact, they can write 300-500 characters per hour under equal conditions.
This means that Japanese freelance writers will earn between 300-500 JPY (2-3.2 USD) per hour if they work a job paid 1 JPY per character. Needless to say, it is impossible to live on this income in Japan. If a job pays 0.1 JPY…, I don’t even want to think about it anymore.
Why have Japanese freelancing platforms become such a miserable condition?
There could be various reasons for this, but the following are some causes.
Most Japanese freelancers start without knowledge and confidence
Some Japanese freelancers try to find jobs despite having no background, and they choose a lower-paid job than usual first because of a lack of confidence. However, if such actions are frequent, the average pay rate will obviously decline steadily. Also, as you know, there are so many beggars and scammers online planning to exploit labor. This situation is extremely convenient for such suspicious individuals.
If each of them has good confidence to enter the marketplace, freelancers won’t need to choose a low-paid job, and they can avoid such a terrible situation.
Japanese customers basically require workers to have the same productivity and results, regardless of cost
Almost all Japanese customers instruct workers on too many requirements for the same results. As a result, Japanese writers are required to produce unified mechanical content rather than human, creative ones for customers. Thus, many Japanese writer jobs are straightforward, boring, and low-paying. If customers can expect the same results regardless of who they entrust, it should be easy to imagine that they will seek out cheaper labor next.
Ultimately, they might simply not want to spend money on business and others.
Japanese strict organizational culture in business
It is well-known that Japan has harsh hierarchical relationships. In business, customers are always in a higher position than workers are in a lower position. And people in higher positions tend to overlook lower positions as weak. If workers are not respected even a little, it is obvious that they will be exploited in every aspect—time, effort, money, and so on—by people in higher positions.
Because of the countless scammers targeting freelancing platforms
There are quite a lot of online scammers in Japan; it would not be an exaggeration to say that this is the biggest reason. They often impersonate freelancers or companies and deceive other freelancers and companies as ghost contractors or overpriced product sellers. And their numbers are rapidly increasing through a pyramid scheme. The article below explains their concrete characteristics and methods.
Conclusion
Freelancing platforms in foreign countries might also include some suspicious jobs, but I bet that only Japan tolerates so many jobs that pay remarkably low wages. And I’m sure that it’s highly unlikely that Japanese freelancing platforms will reform their system in the future.
Japan is a rare country that offers low-cost and high-quality service. However, this will never be established without labor sacrifices. Japan would quickly decline if workers recognized the unreasonable, unfair situation.
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