Subs’ rates review

SO HOW have subbing rates been doing? Members report managements cutting offered rates unilaterally "because of the crisis". A cynic would say that managements would say that, wouldn't they - any crisis is an opportunity, in their case to cut costs. And the Freelance is, by profession, a cynic.

So we decided to plot the rates you reported to the Rate for the Job since records began in April 1992.

The result is less bad than we feared:


Rates reported for subbing shifts in all sectors: news, regional, mags, books and PR. We have a nasty feeling we failed to weed out some rates that are in fact per hour.

The red line in the graph above is a "linear regression" - the simplest way of extracting a trend from a scatter of data. And it shows rates rising in cash terms - possibly not keeping pace with inflation, but rising.

We don't have enough data to be sure what's happening at the right-hand edge - that's now. So let us know, in confidence, what you've been paid - submit a rate.

Submit a rate

Last modified: 3 Jun 2009 - © 2009 contributors
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