If you ask any member of my team from the Philippines why they’ve stayed with me for so long, they'll cite their competitive salary as the first if not the second reason.

It’s a sad reality that many Filipino professionals—referring to the country’s natives or inhabitants, or people of Filipino descent—feel underpaid in their country, especially in rural areas. The better-paying roles often require relocating to major urban centers like Cebu, Davao, or Metro Manila. And in an archipelagic country, distance is more than just a matter of miles if your destination is across a body of water.

The prospect of higher pay—along with a flexible work schedule and the opportunity to work from home—has motivated a lot of middle class professionals in the Philippines to shift careers. Many choose to leave positions aligned with their academic backgrounds to work as virtual assistants (VAs), a catch-all term for online workers who hold clerical, administrative, or managerial positions at foreign businesses. 

This blog details how we pay our remote team members from the Philippines.

SALARY BENCHMARKING

As a general rule, the salary for a position should at least support an equivalent lifestyle in the country the worker resides. For example, if a senior bookkeeper or accountant in the U.S. earns an upper middle-class salary, then an equally proficient accountant from the Philippines should likewise be paid, at minimum, a Philippine upper middle-class salary. 

One commonly regarded benchmark of a comfortable middle-class lifestyle in the Philippines is a 6-digit monthly salary of 100,000 Philippine pesos (PHP) or around USD 1,850. That’s equivalent to an hourly rate of $12 for a 40-hour work week. The U.S. national minimum wage of $1,218 per month would still put a wage earner in the Philippines’ middle class.

To get a better idea of salary standards in your industry, benchmarking tools like Payscale, Glassdoor, and SalaryExpert provide information on compensation and benefits trends around the world. In terms of what Filipino online workers earn, here’s a table based on a 2024 salary survey by Talent:

To the business owner with no prior offshoring experience, what jumps out immediately is the significantly lower payroll costs across a huge diversity of roles. Hiring remote workers has not only allowed me to hire more skilled individuals, it has also slashed around 70% of salary costs. This figure falls within the range of how much larger businesses save by outsourcing.

Just how fair are these incredibly low wages to Filipino job seekers? Are they severely underpaid for the work they do? Not quite, but they do want to be paid more. Table 2 below shows the desired salaries of job seekers based on their Onlinejobs.ph (OLJ) profiles. OLJ is one of the most popular hiring platforms in the Philippines with more than two million job seeker profiles and is one of my go-to sites for hiring staff from the Philippines.

Table 2: Desired monthly salary ranges of Filipino jobseekers on OLJ.

How much does my team earn relative to these standards? Depending on each member’s proficiency and length of tenure, they earn between $960 and $2,112 per month or approximately $6-12 per hour based on 20-22 working days and eight-hour shifts.

Considering reported salaries (Table 1), the staffers’ earn on the high end for each role. Relative to the desired wage standards (Table 2), they are compensated as professionals with high-intermediate to expert proficiency. 

All my companies offer salary structures that reward loyalty and competence—a framework my employees understand well even before they were hired. The pay scale is clearly stated in our job postings to attract more applicants, particularly those interested in long-term employment. 

The competitive rate and transparency make our job posts stand out on hiring platforms. Browsing Onlinejobs.ph or SEEK, for instance, you’ll find that most employers offer around the median reported wage. Some of my now long-time employees have said that our posts seemed almost too good to be true, but they still applied because our posts were well written and conveyed authenticity. Learn how to create an engaging job post in this blog.

PAY RAISE SCHEDULES

Upon hiring, the staffer’s first three months represent an onboarding and training period during which they earn $1 to $2 per hour lower than the regular rate. We communicate this information twice before hiring—once in the job post and again in the job offer email.

Extending the training period for more than one quarter might cause resentment. For this reason, we suggest capping the onboarding phase at three months. More experienced hires can negotiate to reduce this period to 1-2 months.

After the three months, if both parties agree to continue the employment, the staffer earns the regular rate for the next nine months. By their first anniversary, another raise is due, with subsequent raises on each anniversary thereafter.

BONUS TIP: PAY WEEKLY TO START

Many applicants from the Philippines request that they be paid weekly for at least the first few months. Consider this a security measure on their part as many online workers, especially freelancers, have experienced delayed payouts, or worse, not getting paid at all for their efforts.

Paying weekly builds trust and eases anxiety on the worker’s end, allowing them to focus fully on their tasks without worrying about being paid. Reducing this anxiety also benefits your business as it supports productivity and performance.

Even if new hires don’t request weekly payments, doing so can be worth your while if you’re new to managing remote teams’ payrolls. It’s an early opportunity for you to find a reliable payment method and resolve any platform issues before they affect the process and cause delays. Wise is a popular fintech service that supports USD to PHP transfers and is what we use to pay our Filipino employees. 

Partner with Wise Scout to grow your business with skilled Filipino professionals

We specialize in connecting you with the right talent and providing the guidance you need to retain them for the long term. Our approach ensures that your team is fairly compensated, motivated, and positioned to contribute to your company’s success. 

Let’s begin building your team today.