Top 5 Work At Home Jobs That Produce Income

While there are more work-at-home scams than there are legitimate job opportunities that one can pursue in the home, there are real opportunities. In the mid-2000s, one of the biggest scams was one in which a foreign entity contacted potential workers via email or on CareerBuilder.com and other job search boards. CareerBuilder did a good job of weeding these false job listings from their reputable offers, with the help of readers that found them and reported to CareerBuilder.com.

The scammer stated that they wished to have staff in America to handle payment checks that their Eastern European banks could not process. The employee would receive checks at home, deposit them in their own personal checking accounts, and keep 15 to 20% of the cash while sending on a Western Union payment, which was an additional cost to the employee.

Many times, the checks were 1) for EBay merchandise that was never received or 2) fraudulent, leaving the employee with a badly overdrawn checking account, plus overdraft fees. The scammers were in the United States, but gave false Euorpean addresses. They could pick up the Western Union payment from any office in the US.

Variations of this scam are evident all over the country, so it's best to avoid involvement with any scheme that includes processing third party checks. However, call centers employee home workers and that opportunity is described below. If a call center wishes to hire you for incoming call work AND to process checks, it is likely a scam.

The total number of American workers that produced income at home or elsewhere offsite (with a laptop at Starbucks) at least one day monthly rose 39% from 2006 to the end of 2008, according to data provided by WorldatWork in 2009. Since that time, more people have found work-at-home and independent contractor employment, especially during the Great Recession 2008 - 2010.

As a recession settled across the USA in late 2008 - 2009, old jobs are eliminated as companies and employers cut back to basic work staff. New purchases of equipment and related items were also reduced. Already a money-saver in the past, the use of temporary employees and offsite at-home workers in order to reduce payroll and insurance costs became increasingly palatable.

At the same time, the laid off and downsized worker often thinks about working from home. This is true also of workers that want to homeschool their children or avoid a long commute to work. Others need to care for their own aged or ailing parents during the day in order to prevent them from moving to a nursing home. Work-at-home jobs are ideal for these and other individuals.

Working at home is a convenient option while one is waiting for the new green collar jobs to emerge at a quicker pace in America. There is likelihood that these jobs will emerge to replace jobs that are no longer practical. Just as most cities no longer have elevator operators or doormen (except at swank establishments), some of the jobs of the last decades are declining into disuse altogether.

I am reminded of the late 1980s when some offices switched from the typewriter to the PC workstation. Some younger and older workers alike were hesitant to change media, even after being thoroughly trained on individual computers for word processing and printing. They promised to switch over “one day” or “next week” or “soon.” In several of these establishments, the typewriters had to be spirited away in order to force the changeover. Hopefully, sustainable industries and green jobs will emerge in sufficient numbers quickly enough and readily accepted by the labor pool waiting to fill them.

Some workers will still prefer to work at home and this is a good option for them. This is especially true of single parents that could benefit from saving on child care costs, some older or disabled workers that are tired of fighting traffic in order to get to and from the job, and others that want to save money or work at their own pace on the 24-hour clock.

Try any of the five types of jobs discussed below for success in a home business.

Inbound Call Centers Hire Home Workers

Some US call center work has been outsourced to India and China, but plenty of telephone customer service work still exists in America.

The work is performed at home for online retail sales and some services by companies such as major drug stores, florists, clothing distributors, and numerous other businesses.

If you can purchase something online or via a catalogue, then you can likely find a job with that company receiving and processing orders with your

1) landline telephone and

2) high-speed Internet connection

that you furnish; you will pay for these on your own and these will be business deductions for your income tax returns.

REQUIREMENTS

• Ability to work independently and stick with your chosen schedule and deadlines.
• Ability to work at least 20 hours per week, up to 60 in some cases for some companies.
• Ability to provide superior customer service skills: really listen to customers as individuals, offer respect, ask relevant questions, be extremely accurate, ensure customer satisfaction; speak proper English or Spanish or both without slang in clear, well-modulated tones and volumes.
• Ability to maintain a quiet work area during your calls – no dogs barking, neighbors or salesmen interrupting; or children hanging on, crying and shouting. It must be quite and exude a professional ambiance.
• Compliance to file Estimated Income Tax forms and payments quarterly (unless you already own a business trhough wich this income will pass) and yearly IRS tax returns. You will likley be a sole proprietor, with the deductions that are applicable: a portion of telephone and Internet costs, use of the home as an office, cost of supplies, etc.
• Ability to incorporate your activities as a business, if your chosen employer requires this status (a few do; be sure to find out early on).

2) Medical Transcriptionists can work at home to type hardcopy or digitally submitted texts from dictation performed by a variety of healthcare professions. These include physicians, surgeons, psychiatrists, and several others. These professionals like to hire certified transcriptionists thathave completed a trianing course and received a certificate of diploma. You might work for a local practice or a huge professional group out of state.

3) Book, Magazine, and Copy Editors review book and article proposals and edit hard copy as well as perform related duties. Increasing numbers of firms are hiring proofreaders and editors to work online and sibmit their work digitally. Employers usually require a postsecondary degree in liberal arts, communication, journalism. or English amd work experience as a writer or proofreader.

4) Massage Therapists and Relexologists I have known success massage therapists and reflexologists that have worked in offices and at home or traveled with their vans to serve clients and all were happy in their work. One couple I knew met while at work in a hospital as nurses, married, gained their massage licenses and became EMTs as well. They were delightfully happy and served many grateful clients over the years.

Massage involves the full body and reflexology involes the feet and at times the hands and even the face as focal points, alhough full body knowledge is required. Each state of the union has its own Education & Training standards in place for these occupations, along with testing and licensing requirements.

Translation is actually a form of freelance writing and editing, because translation often involves transliteration and not usually only a literal translation of materials, except for medical or scientific texts, or perhaps flashcards and similar.

Even then, the translator is writing from one language into another. Translation work is often performed digitally, completely online, or performed and then submitted via email. A translator must be fluent in at least two languages and often possess as a BS or BA degree, but native speakers can perform this service just as well.

For other freelance writing opportunities, Hub Pages is a writing community with a variety of ways to produce extra income.