Some people on Upwork are dishonest or unskilled, but some are also excellent. Hiring is hard, regardless of the talent pool.
If you have better ideas of where to find contractors, please let me know. I'm always open to finding a better or fairer marker than Upwork.
Have you considered hiring actual employees locally rather than remote, unseen contractors?
The contractors are remote, but I do see them on video. I'm also remote and unseen, as I've worked remotely my entire career.
There is not too much competition for talent. The crap is easy to weed out; most people who are bad have 100 ‘expert skills’ on their profile. So skipping those (which, unfortunately, means that you mostly end up without anyone from Asia) already cleans up nicely. Secondly, remove all the ones that have open jobs at that moment. Then remove low ratings. Now you have a few left to have chat and figure out if they are lying or not. And then you just pick the best one (technically but also if you click with them) that’s left.
Small cities in NZ have great people. For example www.triotech.co.nz or nodero.com
What does this mean? I equate “good exchange rate” with “low exchange commission/fee” and “low volatility”.
You're right about volatility too, the NZD doesn't swing too wildly.
Because in some countries, you can live like a king on $66k and you'll always have contracts. And anyway, no one gets paid based on the "value of their work". That's how services businesses are profitable at all -- the employees generate more value than they're paid.
My standard of living is pretty good too.