As I see it...
Posted By: Brenda on 2009-09-08
In Reply to: Just wondering - fatcat
Not 10, but more like 15-20 years ago (yes, I was around back then) MTs were paid a decent premium over typists because of the specialized knowledge required.
It's still (and even more so) a knowledge job, but the differential being paid for this knowledge has been wiped out as line rates for MTs have stagnated while general wages - including those for typists - have risen during these past two decades.
Now, the reward for meeting quality standards (a measure of knowledge) is that you get to keep your job - unless, of course, it's outsourced offshore or transmogrified into an even lower-paid position as a VR editor. In the latter case, the MT's knowledge is devalued even further.
Every day, on the job forum here and elsewhere, we see MTSO's screaming for help and it's pretty obvious that the situation is worsening as good people retire or leave voluntarily while what inadequate replacements there are must accept line rates that hardly justify their labor.
Meanwhile, clients become more and more demanding with shorter and shorter turnaround times, stiffer performance penalties, and the ever-present threat to send their work offshore. It seems that they do not realize that they themselves are in large part responsible for ensuring that they are using their buyer's power to destroy a marketplace that they desperately need to remain robust and healthy. This is not an uncommon phenomenon in markets that are dominated by buyers, incidentally...the ultimate destruction of too many sellers.
The bottom line is that this industry that once provided both a decent living and good working conditions for highly-skilled people now totally sucks.
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