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SPRING 2023 The Linguist 7
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A
recent conversation with a well-
known translator about the
reluctance of people generally to
talk about how much they earn got me
thinking about the pervasiveness of poor
remuneration in the translation profession.
Pointing out the tendency for earnings to be
on the paltry side in our profession seems to
be controversial (some translators react with
hostility when the topic is raised), but it is not
my intention to court controversy or to be
unduly negative. I fully acknowledge that
there are many translators who earn decent
money, even six-figure sums.
However, it is important to consider why, in
a global industry that had grown to £35 billion
by 2018, with the top 25 language service
providers (LSPs) in the UK growing at a rate of
40% a year,
1
the average translator's income
in the UK is just £24,702.
2
Of course, many
translators earn far less than that, particularly
those working in emerging economies.
It stands to reason, then, that when
translators disclose what they charge,
especially those earning in excess of £50,000
a year, awareness about rates increases.
Lower earning translators are thereby given
knowledge they can use to raise themselves
up financially. In considering this issue, I will
focus on freelance agency work, because that
is how most translators work.
CULTURE + GENDER = LOW PAY?
There are myriad reasons for lower pay in
the language professions. I won't go into
them in depth here, except to state the
obvious: market forces dictate how much
you can charge for your services, and ours
is an oversubscribed industry, particularly
for translators with a common language
pair. In addition, machine translation is
getting better all the time, and translators
working for agencies are expected to post-
edit at an even lower rate than they are paid
for translation.
To compound this issue, the translation
profession is mostly comprised of women. In
terms of salaried employment, 60% of
women have never negotiated pay with an
employer and many women would rather
leave a job than do this.
3
Could this scenario
be replicated in the freelance market, with
many women simply accepting the rate
quoted by an LSP? I am speaking in
pragmatic terms, without apportioning
blame, because we can only hope to combat
this issue by addressing it.
When it comes to tackling low rates, a
further obstacle might originate in differences
between cultures. I've experienced this
Justine Raymond argues that change will only come
when translators start to openly discuss their rates
WE NEED TO TALK
ABOUT MONEY
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