Opinions please - my son's paper round - is this a fair wage?

scubaangel

I used to get £12 a week for 6 days and had 40 houses to deliver to and more on a Saturday, tbh that does sound like a small round so on first thoughts the pay sounds quite fair.

Oldernotwiser

It takes him an hour to deliver papers to 17 houses?

tracyk

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

It takes him an hour to deliver papers to 17 houses?

Yes - it's 15 mins walk to the first house; then he starts delivering & 15 mins back from the last house - quite a wide spread round too...

If it were 17 houses on our estate it would be different...

bendix

tracyk wrote: »

Yes - it's 15 mins walk to the first house; then he starts delivering & 15 mins back from the last house - quite a wide spread round too...

You might want to suggest to his boss that he hires McKinsey or Accenture to do some kind of time and motion study to see if he can increase the efficiency of the job. Who knows, it could make all the difference.

adg1

:rotfl:

I used to get about £8 for well over a hundred papers on a walk of about 2 miles there and back. And I had to fold them all up and insert leaflets etc every week.

AND it was in the days before non-smudge ink!

Made me truly appreciate it when I got a real saturday job at 16 years old paying me a whole £3.50 per hour!

bristol_pilot

IMO as he is only 14 he should not be working at all - we are not (yet) a third world country that has to send our kids out to scrape a few coppers for the family under conditions that no adult would put up with. As his parent(s) YOU should be providing for HIM and let him concentrate on his schoolwork.

ViolaLass

When I lived at home, my mother paid me £5 an hour to do the cleaning each weekend - about £15 in all. She didn't have to do the cleaning and I got a far better wage, far better conditions and shorter travel time than any other job would offer!

Maybe you could consider offering your son an alternative job if there are extra things round the house that he could do. Given that he's currently working for less than £2 an hour, it won't be difficult for you to give him a pay rise and it would save you having to help him (which does seem like a silly situation to me).

paulwf

tracyk wrote: »

Yes - it's 15 mins walk to the first house; then he starts delivering & 15 mins back from the last house - quite a wide spread round too...

If it were 17 houses on our estate it would be different...

The only way to do a paper round efficiently is by cycling, it would reduce his 30 minute round trip to 10 minutes.

Assuming he did 37 papers and it took around an hour (by bike) I think £10 is still a bit on the low side. It works out under £2 p/h which IMHO is slave labour.

See http://www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/493355.get_a_round_in_for_extra_cash/

£12 for 2 hours rate back in 2004. That sounds very high to me but it might be worth contacting your local free paper to see what their rate is.

Savvy_Sue

tracyk wrote: »

Yes - it's 15 mins walk to the first house; then he starts delivering & 15 mins back from the last house

I don't think you should include the time it takes him to get to and from 'work' in your calculations, personally.

bristol_pilot wrote: »

IMO as he is only 14 he should not be working at all - we are not (yet) a third world country that has to send our kids out to scrape a few coppers for the family under conditions that no adult would put up with. As his parent(s) YOU should be providing for HIM and let him concentrate on his schoolwork.

That's your opinion, and many of us feel there is nothing wrong with teenagers spending a small part of their time in the real rather than the virtual world.

paulwf wrote: »

The only way to do a paper round efficiently is by cycling, it would reduce his 30 minute round trip to 10 minutes.

Until his bike gets forcibly taken from him, as happened to my lad.

We've done the free paper at weekends (rate of pay dependent on number of leaflets enclosed); the daily local paper (paid per paper); and a Sunday morning round (£10 per week, trolley provided).

I would suggest a phone call to the distributor, it may be that a pay rise is happening but not mentioned, and if it's not happening then there's nothing to stop him working out what he thinks he should get and asking for it!

However unless the 'new' papers are spread out even further than the original ones, it may not take a lot longer, so the distributor may argue for a smaller increase than if your son works it out on a per paper basis.

Wine_of_the_World

That does seem like a low wage, even for a young person. I agree that you shouldn't calculate the time it takes to get to the first house or from the last house - this is travel time to work. But the time in between houses should count. Could you get him a cheap second hand bike to speed the time up?

Its a bit cheeky for them to increase the workload without increasing the pay - perhaps have a polite word with them about that. Dont rock the boat too much if your son really wants to keep the job.

A job like this will teach your son the value of money - but it does seem like really hard work for such a small sum.