Forum - View topicNEWS: P.A. Works Responds to Public Discussion on Work Conditions
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TarsTarkas
 Posts: 5825 Location: Virginia, United States |
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Since there are no details on what was actually posted, kind of hard to comment about anything. Is P.A. Works laying the hammer down, or do they actually mean what they say?
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mgosdin
 Posts: 1302 Location: Kissimmee, Florida, USA |
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I think you would have to be there at P A Works to be able to figure it out. Someone on this side of the Big Pond isn't going to get near enough information.
Mark Gosdin |
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Rockweaver
 Posts: 58 Location: North Texas |
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the pay rates make it believable at one level. a starting income that low you would never be able to survive in the states. 10K per year starting. My kids made more working for fast food. the industry needs to increase pay scales or they will continue to loose talent.
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Blackiris_
 Posts: 535 |
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I think even the Japanese make more working for fast food or as waiters since there is no hourly wage in the animation industry, and until you've gained enough experience and develope the skill to draw really fast (a key competence according to many veterans), it's really hard to get by. The industry would have collapsed ages ago if most people working as animators were not passionate enough about their job to endure and keep going. |
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Nitsugalego
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People fail to understand that "dream jobs" tend to have lower pays than "boring jobs". This is a fact of economics and, consequently, of life.
Having said that, Japan's crappy labor laws (firing a worker is almost impossible, for example) make entry level jobs Hell on Earth. Employers are reluctant to hire new people so they overwork currently employed staff to a pulp. This reluctance also translates to lower wages, because employers don't want to be stuck with a over payed employee they can't fire. |
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Яeverse
 Posts: 1140 Location: Indianapolis |
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If directors and key people are only making 54 - 60K, then animation is clearly not a field you go into for money. Entry level has to be in the 20 K or lower category at that rate. Actually dont salaried retail store managers make about the same as animation directors.
Since anime pay is transparent why would one go into it making that little.You kind of only have yourself to blame if youre making low wages. |
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RestLessone
 Posts: 1426 Location: New York |
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For people curious, these are the tweets, which allege, among other things, that they PA Works begins charging in-betweeners to use a desk by their 3rd year.
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Greed1914
 Posts: 4426 |
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When you consider cost of living in Japan, even the salary for directors and other higher-level staff isn't that great.
True enough. That is why I have always found that whole "Do what you love, and the money will follow" saying to be rather ridiculous. Chances are that it is a lot of other people's dream job, so labor supply is working against you, and you have to work that much harder to stand out. |
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Яeverse
Posts: 1140 Location: Indianapolis |
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Do people really stay as in betweeners for that long? Can you make a career out of being an in betweener? |
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Lemonchest
Posts: 1771 |
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Ah well. Things will get outsourced to China before they get better, so there's not much one can do but shrug & hope the now probably blacklisted from all animation studios employee finds something more fulfilling to do.
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nargun
Posts: 925 |
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On the face of it that's not unreasonable. It's not actually uncommon for piecework contractors to be charged for supplied tools/equipment: you can't just set the piecework rate to reflect the costs, because the costs are per-hour and the pieces-per-hour rate varies between workers. Of course... contractors are supposed to have higher wages precisely because they have to cover their own overheads. Animator overheads probably aren't huge, but they're earning significantly less than you'd think. [better to put them on payroll, but the industry is pretty variable and most of the firms too thinly capitalised to absorb the variations.] |
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rizuchan
 Posts: 975 Location: Kansas |
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What it also shows, however, is something that all of the debates about Japanese animators' salaries seem to be conveniently leaving out, assuming this is typical - They take out ~$150 and ~$80 for dorm and food respectively, which sounds to me like the company is subsidizing most of her living expenses and her "net pay" is all expendable income. So she had one bad month to start out with because she had little work and all of her move in fees, but in October she made over $600 in take home pay. Having that much money left after expenses isn't bad at all. Yeah, living in a dorm would probably suck but as I understand that's not uncommon for Japanese companies (and if you're working 20 hours a day, why not...) That said, I'm not arguing that animators aren't underpaid, but for everyone wondering "How do they afford rent and food on that salary?" the answer seems to be that the company takes care of (some of) it. |
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AJ (LordNikon)
 Posts: 504 Location: Kyoto |
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Well, when I got my masters in journalism, my starting rate was what equates to about $9.oo an hour today. I couldn't live off that either and was working 50-60 hours a week. I had two choices, suck it up and managed to survive for a few years till U gained the seniority to move up the ladder and along with it the bigger check, or piss off and find another line of work. I stuck with it and was able to retire from the Washington Post and start a second career in the wire service. Sure, the first few years meant 80 hours a week and two jobs, and I really think there is a major generation gap speaking here, but really my kids and grand kids are so spoiled; expect to graduation high school and go right in to making 40k a year After researching the pay issues as reported on here for the past year, it is rough for the first year and yes, the schedule is grueling, and if you can pay your dues, the rewards are there; if not, just like anything else in the creative sector, someone younger and hungrier is going to take your slot, so suck it up, bite down and push through it, or move on to greener pastures. |
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omoikane
Posts: 494 |
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That's pretty much untrue. There are jobs where the demand is greater than the supply and thus exploitation happen, but animation in Japan is actually the opposite. The career is bleak in terms of the reward that a lot of talent choose to go into other areas instead (like making video games). Ultimately the economic outlook of any career choice depends on a boat load of external factors, any one of them is arguably greater than the propensity of it being someone's dream job. |
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secondkas
 Posts: 95 |
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That's what I thought too upon looking at it. Personally, my salary is barely enough to cover bills and rent but I get by with it so I don't think I'm in any position to complain, since that is what a job is for. However, I don't exactly know what is the standard cost of living in Japan and how much actual hours did the she put to earn that much, so it's a little hard to make judgment from two payslips from one employee. But of course, an employee complaining is definitely saying something about the working conditions of the company. |
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