The rate tells you what an hour is worth. The schedule tells you how many of those hours are paid at a premium — and on a six-day contract that is usually the bigger number.
Here is a live example. A KUKA robot programmer is needed in Woodruff, South Carolina for EV battery manufacturing and testing. Every figure below was read off the public posting, signed out, on 12 August 2026.
The arithmetic nobody does
The posting says 10 hours a day, 6 days a week. Work it through and it is a 60-hour week: forty hours at straight time and twenty at overtime. Not an occasional Saturday — twenty premium hours, every single week.
| At $72.00 straight and $93.60 overtime | |
|---|---|
| Overtime premium per hour | $21.60 |
| Overtime hours per week | 20 |
| Premium value per week | $432.00 |
| Gross week at rate (40 × $72.00 + 20 × $93.60) | $4,752.00 |
Compare that to a contract advertising a higher headline rate on an eight-hour, five-day week. Forty hours, no premium at all. The number on the poster is bigger and the week is worth less.
Then count what you are not paying for
| Daily per diem | $68.00 — receipts not required |
| Hotel allowance | $130.00 / day |
| Airfare allowance | $800.00 |
| Rental car | $60.00 / day |
| Fuel | $60.00 |
| Mileage | $0.760 / mile |
| Travel time | $44.00 / hour |
| Terms | Net60, customer approves timesheet and expenses |
Per diem and hotel together are $198 a day before you have worked an hour. Most postings say "expenses possible" and leave you to discover the rest after you have already said yes. This one lists every line in public, before you apply, without an account.
The work
| Role | Robot Programmer — KUKA |
| Location | Woodruff, South Carolina |
| Rate | $72.00 / hour · $93.60 OT · $115.20 Sunday and holiday |
| Shift | Days |
| Hours per day | 10 |
| Days per week | 6 |
| Start date | 17 August 2026 |
| Duration | 2 weeks initially — more work possible next month |
| Scope | Clean up program issues and work a hit list on a new system — material handling, pick and place, and moving tooling to the part for high-voltage testing |
| Experience | BMW Woodruff plant preferred; other BMW facility experience welcome |
That last line matters more than it looks. A fortnight has no ramp-up built into it. Somebody who already knows the plant starts contributing on day one; somebody who does not spends the first three days learning where things are, and the hit list does not wait.
Why every term is published
Automate America is a free, fair and open global marketplace for skilled work. Free to post, free to apply, free to hire.
- If you have work to fill, posting it costs nothing. You name the rate you are willing to pay, and it goes out written, designed and published across every channel on our dime. Professionals apply to you directly and nothing gets bid down. Post your work here, free.
- If you run a service company, this is one of your available people on billable work for two weeks with travel and lodging covered. Your non-billable bench is the single largest cost you carry, and you can apply your own employees straight to open contracts — taking on work bigger than your own headcount without hiring for it first.
- If you are the professional, you apply directly, to a published rate and a published schedule, with no recruiter in the middle deciding what you are worth. View and apply to this contract, or browse every open contract.
Now tell me where I am wrong: should a posting be required to state the weekly hours as plainly and as prominently as it states the hourly rate? I think a rate without a schedule is half a number, and I would rather hear the argument against that than not.
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Tony Wallace
Co-Founder, Automate America
PO BOX 1638, Greer, SC 29652
automateamerica.com
