Low Tasks Availability in Ads Assessor/Arrow Project – What Are the Reasons?
As being a rater you might notice that starting from January 2021 the volume of tasks in the project significantly decreased, and many raters might be wondering when the situation to be improved or back to normal.
Pandemic affects Google ads business
Lionbridge notified raters that the number of tasks might be low or unstable due to slow down of the ads business of Google due to pandemic. As you may know, tasks are generated from real ads. The vendor confirmed that this a temporary issue, and the customer expects the volume of tasks to be increased in the future. The good thing is that the number of blind tests was decreased due to this fact and there is a very small chance of being fired.
Wage arbitrage
Part of the reason for low task availability the client is engaging in wage arbitrage and sending more work to lower-paying markets. Raters in Russia, India, Poland, Indonesia are still doing well but raters in North American and Europe are being sidelined.
Seasonal factor and system update
Tasks are not distributed evenly throughout the year, based on 5 years observation I can confirm that the seasonal factor takes place as well, the low season is spring. The vendor informed raters that the customer usually revises and updates rating algorithms in spring and this process affects task volume in the system.
New task distribution algorithms
Another point that I wanted to clarify relates to the number of tasks that the raters receive, the number of tasks given is not the same for everyone during the month, and some raters can receive more tasks than others. This is due to the task’s distribution algorithms. Usually, in the following month, the unevenness is compensated by an increase in the number of tasks for those raters who received fewer tasks in the current month.
Tips for getting more tasks
Logon raterhub more frequently to check for tasks in particular between 9AM – 3 PM PST
Currently, working less than 20 hours per week will not affect your status in the system.
Part of the reason there are so few tasks is the client is engaging in wage arbitrage and sending more work to lower-paying markets. Raters in Indonesia are still doing well but raters in North American and Europe are being sidelined.
Thanks for your opinion.
We are facing same issues Ini Indonesia. Almost completely there is no task
Is this task shortage still there as for the last 2 weeks I didn’t work a single task
Yes, this problem is actual for the US and EU markets, now there is enough evidence that the reason is wage arbitrage, customer is sending more work to lower-paying markets.
Are there any indications this is going to change, or will it more likely be a permanent arrangement? If they are fine with letting almost all of the work (including US and other English-market tasks) go to Indonesia, Egypt, Philippines and Turkey, then they had might as well cut down the rosters for most of the other locales that are not getting work.
They continue hiring new raters in EU and USA, I assume this is temporary issue but I have no idea how long it will last.
I heard from some raters in Egypt that appen’s raters have all the tasks because it pay less that’s why LB raters don’t have any tasks almost all the time is that true??
No, this statement is not true. The client pays the same rate to all vendors, however, vendors are free to set their own payment rates to its raters…
The raterhub system is the same for all raters within a locale.
Your guess when there will be more tasks? Then when world is getting more normal after corona virus vaccination? This year, next year? It feels like the oxford university vaccination might be ready in september/october..
Hi everyone, do you still experience tasks shortage in your market? or back to normal already
yes only from 12/08/2020 00:00 AM this was for the first day that I can mange 4 hours since May . Hope that will continue for the next days.
Egypt market.
What about you ?
So, the situation is switched. This is first week I experience tasks shortage. Indonesia market 😀
Lots of tasks in Russian market since July…
What is your opinion about TCR ? should we 100% compliance to the suggested rate?
TCR is the same metric that is used by Appen called RPH. This metric is calculated based on average time which is spent by all raters to complete a specific type of task. Google wants all raters to rate tasks within the average estimated time which is automatically calculated by the system every week/month. On average the productivity expectations vary from 1,2 – 1,5 minutes per task or 40 – 50 tasks per hour.
Is it just me or all Indonesian Market wage per hour in Lionbridge is falling down? So sad to think about it
Reports from LB are that wages are being cut for ad raters in a number of locales, as much as 50% in at least one case. On Appen, they threatened to remove raters from two whole locales this week due to a change in business conditions (though it was walked back pretty quickly as a misunderstanding). The tone on this project is not sounding very good at the moment.
Thanks that’s really helpful. How big are the ad rating projects of appens work? Are there any particular geographic regions that are hit hardest?
Where did you get this information?
When you think the situation will be better?
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Hi Tim,
December last year, i was joining Lionbridge as SME. I do the task on Instagram with my iOS smartphone, and always get 30 tasks at once. On January, they switch the tools to SRT so i need to use laptop to rate the ads. At first, i always get 20 task at once, usually at the morning Indonesia time. Then i will do the rest of the task on the evening.
The question is, on this last 6 days.. the ads getting lower. I only get 17 ads at once, and decrease more day by day.. today i only get 11 ads at once. So at the evening, i will do 19 task to complete it to 30 ads.
Is it because i’m not active on Facebook? Because when i rate the ads on Instagram (which im actively there), the number of task always full).
Or is it related to my performance, so they decrease the ad everyday. But overall i can do 30 task in two different time (morning —around 8am, and evening — around 7pm).
Thank you.
Hello,
I assume you have different project (Truckee), this article is about Arrow/Ads Assessor project. I do not work in Instagram ads social medial evaluation project, so I can’t tell you much about your question.