Are there many others of you out there who have had the worst month of the year jobwise in October?
Thread poster: Fredrik Pettersson
Fredrik Pettersson
Fredrik Pettersson  Identity Verified
Hong Kong
Local time: 06:48
Member (2009)
English to Swedish
+ ...
Nov 1

Are there many others of you out there who have had the worst month of the year jobwise in October?

September was quite up to standard for me, but during all three months of June, July and August I didn't receive much jobs.

Last year, June, July and August were quite okay, September almost no jobs, and October was my second best month of the year.

This year 2024 will be the absolutely worst year since I began as a full-time translator.

My quest
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Are there many others of you out there who have had the worst month of the year jobwise in October?

September was quite up to standard for me, but during all three months of June, July and August I didn't receive much jobs.

Last year, June, July and August were quite okay, September almost no jobs, and October was my second best month of the year.

This year 2024 will be the absolutely worst year since I began as a full-time translator.

My questions are:

How many others of you out there experienced October as the worst month jobwise?

Is there any particular reason why there were so little jobs (at least for me) in October, such as the upcoming elections in the USA?

How quickly can the market for translation jobs deteriorate? For instance, I had some catastrophic months in the end of the year last year, then for the first five months in 2024 I did really well and earned most of my income this year during those five months only. So now, since 2023, it's not about a single month that can be really bad, but as many as three months in a row. From here, can it still be even worse, such as half a year with very low income? How sudden can the deterioration of the translation market be for us as freelance translators?
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Isabelle Josseaume-Estrada
 
Rachel Waddington
Rachel Waddington  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 05:48
Dutch to English
+ ...
Not for me Nov 1

January and February were quiet months for me but September and October have been busy with potentially a very large amount of work to come if a quotation is accepted.

In general, I think feast and famine has been an issue for a lot of translators recently.

Are you using the downtime to market yourself to new customers?


 
Matthias Brombach
Matthias Brombach  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 06:48
Member (2007)
Dutch to German
+ ...
Same here Nov 1

Reason: 5 days vacation plus 8 days overtime to be taken off and one day official holiday (Reformation Day).

 
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 05:48
Member (2007)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
@Fredrik Nov 1

October wasn’t my worst month jobwise, but it was rather odd, since all but two of the projects were on the small size and came from the same client…

 
Lieven Malaise
Lieven Malaise
Belgium
Local time: 06:48
Member (2020)
French to Dutch
+ ...
October Nov 1

October was my best month yet this year (eventually not the alltime record month it appeared to become at some point, but nevertheless an excellent month, far above average). I'm well on my way to do at least as good as last year, which was my third best year ever.

 
Zea_Mays
Zea_Mays  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 06:48
English to German
+ ...
not the worst year but choppy Nov 2

My weakest month so far was July, followed by April, with October being the second best so far after March.
The year was quite choppy starting from April, and looking at the economy, I guess that at least one further choppy year may to be expected.


Dan Lucas
 
WolfgangS
WolfgangS
France
Local time: 06:48
Member (2007)
English to German
+ ...
October, great Nov 2

Definitely the best month since... can't remember, following a miserable September. Two huge projects, several audio recordings. Wish this could go on for a while.

 
Fredrik Pettersson
Fredrik Pettersson  Identity Verified
Hong Kong
Local time: 06:48
Member (2009)
English to Swedish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
La signora Fortuna also comes into play... Nov 2

It might as well have been the other way around actually, because I had responded to a job offer about 30 minutes after I received it on 37,000 words (24,000 new words). As I didn't receive any notification that the job had been assigned to someone else, I was certain I had been assigned it. Then it took about two hours until I received reply from the project manager that she had already assigned the job a few minutes ago to someone else. And I responded to another job offer after that on 10,000... See more
It might as well have been the other way around actually, because I had responded to a job offer about 30 minutes after I received it on 37,000 words (24,000 new words). As I didn't receive any notification that the job had been assigned to someone else, I was certain I had been assigned it. Then it took about two hours until I received reply from the project manager that she had already assigned the job a few minutes ago to someone else. And I responded to another job offer after that on 10,000 words, but that job was also assigned to someone else.

Rachel, your suggestion to use the downtime to market myself is a good one.
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Rachel Waddington
 
jyuan_us
jyuan_us  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 00:48
Member (2005)
English to Chinese
+ ...
No Nov 3

In my last 15 freelancing years, my business was never slower in any of the months of the year. The other way is also true: I didn't see my business out-perform in any of the months of the year.

 


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Are there many others of you out there who have had the worst month of the year jobwise in October?







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