Written by The Government has laid down guidelines and policies about minimum pay levels, in order to ensure staff are not taken advantage of. This should be seen as a good move, I feel, as frequently those who were being paid below what could be thought of a living wage were the more at risk members of society. They would be vulnerable perhaps because of a shortage of formal education, or maybe they arrived in Britain in order to gain a job, but because their own country was poor could consider a very low pay here to be good money in comparison to their likely salary in their own country.
For folk who Work From Home, it is much more difficult to know whether or not they are earning the national minimum wage, as there is no straightforward way to actually know how many hours of work were being done to achieve the required outcome. If you Work From Home for an Internet Business, then there is the likelihood that many of your duties will be Online Jobs, and therefore it would be achievable to make a smart guess as to how many hours any employee was working on line every day but for businesses not reliant on the internet it may be much less clearcut.
For my Internet Business, although many of my tasks are Online Jobs, I also am required to do research, so can spend hours out and about, finding inspiration and information. When I am involved in this research, I find time slips away from me. I am not watching the clock and I can spend many hours working on locating information without being aware of this.
If I were to work out my current hourly rate, because my Internet Business is relatively new, I would most likely find that it falls far short of government stipulations, but I look at the bigger picture, where I see myself six months from now, and at that time my hourly rate should, if I do a good job, be far in excess of the national minimum, so over the course of a year I would definitely hope to be much higher than the national minimum wage level, even having started from such a low point.
Many folk who Work From Home are self employed and therefore they are setting their own salary levels and could be seen not to be exploiting anybody other than themselves. If they are satisfied to accept a low salary in order to get their business off the ground and have the prospect to make a better life for themselves in the longer term, then I think this is an acceptable way to go.
Being paid a low wage by some other firm who advise that home workers can earn a good sum on piece work, provided their work meets exacting standards is probably not such a good deal. It is fine if you are skilled in this field and can work quickly and efficiently, but if not the hourly rate you are paid for the number of items you can produce is probably very low. Unless you think you could speed up over time, then this is probably not a good role to choose.
Take time out every so often to calculate your hourly rate. See whether you could improve it by working more efficiently and whether there is the opportunity for it to become a well paid role in the future. If it seems to be going nowhere, then think about whether this is really the right role for you.
