If you were earning about P40,000 monthly, would you be happy and content or not? Most Filipinos probably would, when the average salary in the Philippines is more or less P15,200. But what if you learned that your employer could actually pay you waaaaaay more than that 40K figure? What then? That’s the topic of the fiery debate that this Twitter user Nick Huber aka @sweatystartup’s thread started.

The thread that started it all

My storage company has grown from 6 folks a year ago to 32 today.

18 of them are in the Philippines and make about $5 per hour.

A short thread on how I source and utilize overseas talent 👇

— Nick Huber (@sweatystartup) January 9, 2022

Twitter user Nick Huber started his thread with a hook: he grew his company from a team of 6 to 32 in only just a year. And how did he do that? By paying remote workers $5 per hour.

Let’s get into a brief moment of math, with the assumption that $1 = P50. $5 per hour is P250 per hour. Assuming his employees work 8 hours a day, that’s $40 = P2,000 per day, $200 = P10,000 per week, and $800 = P40,000 per month. That sounds like a good deal, compared to the lower wages from local companies. But is it really?

Remember: This is only gross pay

Gross — meaning the usual deductions haven’t been taken off the total amount yet. This means the figure isn’t the final amount of the take-home pay yet.

And that’s another thing remote employees working for foreign companies have to deal with. Because these online jobs don’t usually have the benefits offered by locally based companies. Remote workers would need to pay their own social security fees, invest in a healthcare premium, file their taxes, etc, etc. So that 40K figure would still go down significantly.

Netizens describe his business tip as ‘exploitation’

Awesome! So cool that you can brag about paying them close to their federal minimum wage, and outsource low-to-middle class jobs. Exploitation is amazing!

— Foolish Swami (@IAmVeryMoody) January 9, 2022

To give perspective, the minimum wage here in the Philippines is around $300 a month.

$1,000 per month is a relatively attractive package already and is an opportunity for many folks here.

— Jul dg (@juldgz) January 9, 2022

His thread attracted a lot of attention. Some are saying he’s being ‘exploitative’ towards his employees. Others are saying he’s paying better than most local companies. And a few are comparing it to the BPO sector, which is a booming industry in the Philippines. It has ignited a fiery debate among people all over the world, and Filipino netizens are equally divided on the issue.

Still, threats are NOT cool

The hate is now pouring in at a rate of hundreds of tweets per hour.

Old posts, new posts, quote tweets, screenshots.

It’s wild to see it happen at this level and makes me a bit worried about my business / team.

— Nick Huber (@sweatystartup) January 11, 2022

Wall Street Bets in on the fun too! @ParikPatelCFA should we tell them about bromatoes? pic.twitter.com/ka6lYu4gau

— Nick Huber (@sweatystartup) January 11, 2022

His thread got so much attention that he’s receiving curse words and even death threats from all over the internet. Not cool. We should foster a healthy environment for discourse (though he does seem to block people who disagree with him).

But let’s break down the sides of this debate:

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