Mountain View, California (USA) -
Lord Osei-Ofori, 24 and Rayman Aryani, 24Lord was born in Ghana. Rayman was born in Oregon, but to a Yemeni family, who moved back to Yemen when he was just a few days old. They grew up in their respective countries, but then went to study in the USA. Lord studied psychology and Rayman studied at Harvard.Just two months after they finished university, they went for a job interviews at Google. “The interview with Google was really strange. They didn’t ask anything about work or about what we had studied. They asked things like, ‘Explain a complex concept to me in simple words,’ and other things like that.” They have been working in the same office for almost 2 years.They work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.According to the contract they have with Google, they can’t disclose how much they are paid.

Jimei, China - Chen Ming Ya, 22.
Chen Ming Ya, 22, was born and raised in Xiamen, China.She studied to become a hotel manager, but her real dream is to become a member of the Communist Party and work for the government.She loves politics, and says they are her greatest passion.Three months ago, right after she finished school, she started working as a receptionist in a sort of hotel owned by the state, which accepts only government people as guests.She works 8 hours a day, and she can have 2 days off per week.She earns RMB 3,200, or around USD 500, per month.

Fihalhohi, Maldives - Umar Hashim, 20
Umar was born in Ga.Dhaandhoo, a very small island in the South Malé Atoll. He spent the first 17 years of his life there, before moving to Filahohi, another small island, where there is only one resort. He found his first job there, as a room cleaner. “I don’t like this job, but so far it’s the only one I have found. I always do the same things. First I have to check the fridges to see if the gue¬sts have consumed anything, then I change the sheets on the beds, and at the end I clean the room. It’s boring!” Umar dreams of opening his own guest house, but he needs to save a lot of money before he can do that.He works every day of the week, 8 hours (and sometimes more) per day. He only gets 3 days off a month. He makes MVR 8,000 per month, or roughly USD 500.

Amsterdam, the Netherlands - Jasper Stoop, 18
Jasper was born and raised in Amsterdam.He’s still a student in high school, but his dream is to became an actor.He’s already taking some acting classes, and would love to go to acting and film school in Amsterdam once he’s done with high school.Four months ago, he also started his first job. “I need to earn some money and save it for film school,” he told me.He works as a fruit vendor in a small shop in the center of the city.He works 2 days a week, 4 hours a day, for a total of 8 hours per week.He earns EUR 6.5 an hour, or about USD 8.

Portland, Oregon (USA) - Vanessa, 24
“The first time that I worked in my life, I was 18. A friend of mine brought me to the same club where she was working as an exotic dancer. It was my first day of work, that night I danced on the stage. A few minutes after my exhibition, a man approached me. He proposed that we spend a month together. He was offering a lot of money. I accepted. He was actually a nice man. In the end, I spent more then 2 months with him. He paid me really good money and he also bought a lot of things for me, but, strangely, we never had sex. After that experience, which I liked, I kept on doing this job. I’ve been an escort for the past 6 years. Now it’s different. With some of my clients I spend only an hour, just for sex, with others an entire weekend, or even a week.”She has no real schedule. She charges her clients USD 200 an hour, USD 1,200 a day, or USD 2,000 for a weekend.

Shyamji Vishwakarma, 18 – Mumbai, India
Shyamji was born and raised in Faizabad, Uttar Pradesh. For 17 years he lived in the same house with his parents, 4 brothers, and 1 sister, but he moved to Mumbai a year ago. Now he lives with his cousin in Sangam Nagar, one of the city’s biggest slums. He’s a tool sharpener. He started this job, his first job, 7 months ago. His work basically consists of sharpening scissors and knives. He starts work every day at 10 a.m. and continues until 9 p.m., with a break of two hours for lunch. He has Fridays off. He gets paid on a per-day basis: 50% of whatever the shop earned that day. The daily average is between 0 and 450 rupees (7 USD). He says, “I want to learn this job in the best way possible and then I want to open my own shop.”

Dubai, UAE -
Al Emran, Mohdmehdi, Shanhin and KobirAl Emran, Mohdmehdi, Shanhin and Kobir are all 24, and they all come from Bangladesh. They moved to Dubai 4 years ago. They had never worked in Bangladesh. “We came here because we found a job in a company owned by an Ira¬nian. We spend the day in the parking garage of the Mall of the Emirates, one of the most luxurious shopping centers in the country. We clean the cars of the people who come here to shop. We charge 18 Dirham (AED) per car (about USD 5). We give all the money we make to the company and we get a monthly salary of AED 1,900 (roughly USD 530). We also earn between AED 200 and 300 in tips every month. We work 8 hours a day, 6 days a week. We all live in the same house – actually with 2 more friends. There are 6 of us in the house, but this is the only way we can afford the rent.”

Bolgheri, Italy - Sara Torti, 22
Sara was born in Montescudaio, a very small town on the Tuscan coast.She grew up there and she studied at the “Istituto Tecnico Agrario” (Agricultural Institute) in Cecina. She would like to become a wine expert, but not a sommelier.Her dream is to make wine and work the land.Right after finishing school a year ago, she started to look for a job. She was lucky enough to find a six-month contract with Ornellaia, one of the best wine producers in Italy.She would love to work with them for a longer time, and she hopes they will extend her contract. She works 7 hours a day, 5 days a week in the summer and8-9 hours a day, 6 days a week during the harvest. She gets EUR 6.6 an hour.

Rio De Janeiro, Brazil –
Paloma Pires Dos Santos Mariano, 19Paloma was born 19 years ago in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil.She grew up there, but one year ago she moved to Rio de Janeiro to find a job.“I studied to became an aesthetician. I went to school for one year in Brasilia, but then it was really difficult to find a good job there. That is why I decided to move to Rio. Here, almost everybody, girls and guys, likes to go to the aesthetician.”Paloma has a 2-year-old son. “His father didn’t acknowledge him, so he lives only with me.” Paloma and her son live in a small house, which they share with Paloma’s mother.She would like to study medicine and become a dermatologist.She found her first job, in a beauty salon in Copacabana, just 3 months ago.Paloma works 9 hours a day, 6 days a week. She makes 3,000 reais (BRL), about USD 900, per month.

Xiamen, China - Dai Bo Ying, 15 and her friend Cai Zhi Bing, 19
Dai Bo Ying is 15. She was born and raised in Xiamen, China.Her dream is to open a beauty salon.She quit school almost a year ago, when she inherited the little crab shop that her parents used to run.Since then, she has been working every day selling crabs on the street.She hired a friend to help her, Cai Zhi Bing. She pays him RMB 3,000 a month (around USD 450) Sometimes she takes a day off and lets her friend work alone.She doesn’t have a real salary. Everything depends on how much she sells, but her average income is about RMB 5,000 a month (around USD 700).

Berlin, Germany - Jonas Hartlieb, 25
Jonas was born and raised on Rügen, a small island in the north of Germany.Four years ago he moved to Berlin, to study pedagogy for 3 years.He wants to become an elementary school teacher, but he needs to study for five more years.He took a year off from school and he’s now working in a private kindergarten.He works from Monday to Friday, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.Every day, even if it’s really cold, he brings the kids outside to play. He works 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. He gets EUR 1,400 a month.

Andre Degollado, 20 – Mexico City, Mexico
Andre was born and raised in Mexico City, and she hopes that she’ll never have to go and live anywhere else. “I like living here. This city is so full of things to do and offers so many possibilities that there's never any risk of getting bored.”Andre wakes up early every morning to go to university. She is studying accounting and dreams of working as an accountant for a big corporation. In the afternoons, however, as soon as she finishes school, Andre goes to work selling sweets and chocolate at her grandmother’s stall in the market. She spends eight hours a day here, usually from 3 in the afternoon until 11 at night.At this time of the year (October) she sells mostly skulls made of sugar or chocolate. “Los Dia de los Muertos is getting closer and people love to buy these sorts of things to decorate their tables for the meal.” Her grandmother doesn’t pay her a regular salary. Every week she gives her something, but the amount is always different. On average, though, she makes 2000 pesos (about 120 USD) per week.

Fribourg, Switzerland – Diana Roccardo, 31
Diana was born in Baden, a small city in the German part of Switzerland. She has always been an excellent student. For the past 5 years, she’s been studying for a PhD in neuroscience at the University of Fribourg. She’s doing research to find out where the instinct for laughter originates in the brain. Part of her research consists of tickling rats and recording their laughs. “Their brains are really similar to human brains. Nobody knows it, but rats can smile and laugh like humans. I’ve found out that they have positive reactions if they are tickled… they actually laugh! So, I do this and I record their laughter. Then, sadly, I destroy a little part of their brain, the part that is the source of the instinct for laughter. If I tickle them again after the operation, they don’t laugh anymore. I then use a medicine on them to see its effect on their brains, and to see if the instinct comes back.”She gets paid for this research, so this is actually her first job.She works 42.5 hours a week and she gets 4,100 Swiss Francs (CHF), or around USD 4,500, per month. Right now she is earning only 70% of the total salary that she’ll get once she has completed her PhD.

Beijing, China - Dendi Huo, 25
Dendi was born and raised in Beijing. At the age of 16, she went to study for a year in the USA, with an exchange program. She loved being abroad and, a few months after her return to China, she decided to apply to an American university. She ended up studying business at Ohio State University. Two years ago, she graduated and came back to Beijing.More than business, her greatest passion is art, so she started to look for a job related to that field. Thanks to a friend, she got in touch with the “Three Shadows Gallery”, the most important photography gallery in the city. “They were looking for a person with international experience. I applied for the job and I got it. Now I work as a curator for the gallery”.She organizes events, shows and workshops and handles all the relationships with the artists. She works 5 days a week for 8-9 hours a day, and she gets RMB 7,000 (around USD 1,100) a month.

Carrefour, Haiti - Regine Thomas, 22
Regine was born and raised in the suburbs of Port-au-Prince. She’s the second of three siblings, all of whom are still living at home with their parents. She studied marketing and computer sciences at the University of Port-au-Prince and then, 5 months ago, her C.V. helped her to get this job. She has a 6-month contract with the electoral commission, a job which she’ll lose after the presidential election. It consists of sitting at her desk for 8 hours a day, where she works on a database, changing the addresses of voters who have recently moved to Carrefour (one of the most densely populated neighborhoods in all of Haiti). Every day, she meets around 100 people and takes down their new addresses.She works 8 hours a day, 6 days a week, and she earns around USD 500 per month

Bogotà, Colombia - Manuel Alvaro Quello Lopez, 20
Manuel Alvaro was born 20 years ago in the southern part of Bogotà, and he grew up there as well. At the age of 18, after finishing school, he joined the army.Four months ago he finished his military service, and a week later he found this job.He’s a guardian for a rich condominium in the northern part of Bogotà.He works 12 hours a day. He works during the day for one week, and at night the next. He spends most of his time watching TV inside the little guardroomat the condominium entrance. He likes his job, but he dreams of becoming a policeman.He gets 36,0000 pesos per month, around USD 200.

Mercy Ibhawoh, 40 – Arco, Italy
Mercy, 40, is from a small village in Edo, a state of Nigeria. He came to Italy fleeing ethnic and religious violence. Boko Haram has attacked members of his family and burnt the church he used to attend. He crossed Nigeria and Niger, and he lived in Libya for a while before he managed to cross the Mediterranean, on a perilous trip during which numerous other refugees perished.He left behind his wife and four children – Grace, 12, Godbless, 10, and twin girls, Peace and Joy, 8. He landed in Sicily, but was soon moved to Trento, in the north of Italy. Through a regional program, he was able to get a job at a garage in Riva del Garda, where he can apply the skills he learned as a truck mechanic in Nigeria.He earns EUR 600, or roughly USD 750, per month, working 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. This is his first regularly paid job. He has applied for refugee status

Cahuita, Costa Rica – Edder Alberto Kurlew Chavarria, 25
Edder Alberto was born in Limón, the largest city on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica.He grew up there, but then, at the age of 18, he moved to Cahuita, a tiny town one hour south of Limón, because he had fallen in love with a girl who lived there.It was when he noticed that there were no hair salons in Cahuita that he decided to open one himself. That was his first job, and he’s still doing it. His shop is called “Barberia Cahuita”. Now, two people work for him at the shop.Edder Alberto lives with his wife and 2 children.He works 6 days a week, about 8 hours a day.He earns roughly 400,000 colones (CRC), or about USD 1,000, per month.

Las Vegas, Nevada (USA) - Berenice Hernandez, 20 and Iris, 9
Berenice is 20. She was born in Mexico but, when she was 3, her whole family moved to Las Vegas. She still lives with her parents, one brother and one sister.When she was 14, she got punched by a classmate at school. That’s when she decided to start training as a boxer. “I wanted to be able to defend myself. That’s why I started boxing,”she says. At the age of 17 she became the female under-18 boxing champion of Nevada. She goes to university, but four months ago she started her first job, working as boxing coach for kids in a little gym in North Las Vegas.She works 4 hours a day, 3 days a week. She gets USD 10 an hour.

Taipei, Taiwan - Eva Prasiska, 24
Eva was born and raised in Indonesia, in a small town in the southern part of Sumatra island. She lived there until the age of 20, then shemoved to Taiwan in search of her first job. “In Indonesia it was impossible for me to find a job”, she told me. Since the moment she arrived here, she has been workingas a caregiver for the elderly. Right now she’s taking care of an old womanwho has not been able to walk for 1 year. Eva lives with the woman and works for her 24 hours a day. She has no scheduled days off. Once every 10 days she ask for a day off to rest and, during that day, the elderly woman stays with her younger sister.Eva dreams of going back to Indonesia one day.She gets 15,000 Taiwanese dollars a month, around USD 450.

Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica – Maria Jose Alvarez Blanco, 20
Maria was born and raised in Alajuela, where she studied biology for one year at university. That one year was all she needed to realize that she didn't want to be a biologist, because she wanted to work with the animals instead, a job she knew she’d love.That was why she decided to move to Puerto Viejo, where there is a sort of animal hospital, where she applied for a job. After 6 months as a volunteer, she was given a contract.In those 6 months she specialized in “parrot and monkey rescue.”“I love to work here. It is a magical place. Every day many people come here and bring us injured animals that they’ve found on the street. We rescue them, and when they are ready, we set them free in the forest.”She works 5 days a week for about 8 hours a day. She makes USD 150 per week, but she gets a lot of tips from tourists who go there to visit. What’s more, she’s given meals and is able to live in a house on the hospital property.

Sharjah, UAE - Waqas Asghai, 23
Waqas was born in Pakistan 23 years ago.At the age of 10, he started to ‘work’ with his father, a mechanic, and he continued to ‘work’with him for 8 years. That wasn't actually his first real job, because he never got paid for his work. His father sometimes gave him some mo¬ney, but never a real salary. At the age of 18, he took the advice of a friend who was living in Dubai and decided to moveto the United Arab Emirates, where, together, the two of them opened a garage. He works every day but Friday.He does 4 hours in the morning and 4 hours in the afternoon, with a three-hour break for lunch. His salary isn’t set, but he makes an average of AED 1,700, or about USD 500, per month.

Carrefour, Haiti - Regine Thomas, 22
Regine was born and raised in the suburbs of Port-au-Prince. She’s the second of three siblings, all of whom are still living at home with their parents. She studied marketing and computer sciences at the University of Port-au-Prince and then, 5 months ago, her C.V. helped her to get this job. She has a 6-month contract with the electoral commission, a job which she’ll lose after the presidential election. It consists of sitting at her desk for 8 hours a day, where she works on a database, changing the addresses of voters who have recently moved to Carrefour (one of the most densely populated neighborhoods in all of Haiti). Every day, she meets around 100 people and takes down their new addresses.She works 8 hours a day, 6 days a week, and she earns around USD 500 per month

New Taipei City, Taiwan - Chen Yun Bin, 17
Chen Yun Bin was born and raised in New Taipei City. Ever since he was a kid, his dream has been to became a hair dresser. “Here in Taiwan, if you want to do this job,you need to get the license. To have that, you need to go to hair dressing school for 3 years,” he told me. Chen Yun has just finished his second year of school.For his third year, he has to do an internship at a hair salon, so, 4 months ago, he started to work in this place. He works every day for 8-9 hours, weekends included, but he can get a day off when he’s tired just by asking the owner of the place for one.At the end of this year, he would like to be able to open his own hair salon.His salary is 20,000 Taiwanese dollars, around USD 600, a month.

Panama Canal; Panama - Mei Ling Hou; 20
Mei Ling was born and raised in the south of China; in a little town close to Xiamen.When he was 18; he moved with his family to Shenzhen; famous as one of the biggest port cities in China.He immediately found a job on a shipping boat that transports wind propellers to the USA. He has been working there for almost two years; and has alreadygone back and forth from China to the USA almost 10 times.He works for 4 months without getting off of the boat; and then he gets a month off in China.He gets RMN 3; 000 per month; around USD 450

Austin, Texas (USA) - Ben Buck, 17
Ben was born in Austin, Texas, 17 years ago. He grew up there, in the city internationally known as “the world capital of live music”. He’s still in high school, but his dream for the future is to work backstage at concerts or as a sound engineer for live shows.Two months ago, he found a part-time job working for a big store that rents musical instruments and PA systems. He’s in charge of collecting all the cables that are returned every day, then testing, rolling and storing them.He works 4 hours a day, 3 days a week. He goes to work after school.He gets USD 10 an hour.

Montecchio, Italy - Fabrizio Cappelli, 25
Fabrizio was born and raised in a small town in the Tuscan countryside.His mother has always been a housewife and his father was a bricklayer, but, unfortunately, he died 13 years ago. Five years ago Fabrizio gota diploma from a vocational school, and now he’s an electrical engineer.For 3 years after finishing school he couldn’t find a job. “There is a big crisis in Italy,” he says.Finally, 2 years ago, he found a job in a big factory that builds truck trailers.He has a 3-year apprenticeship contract and works in the factory’s assembly department.He works 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. He gets EUR 1,200 (about USD 1,500) a month.

Malé, Maldives - Hawwa Rihula, 25
Hawwa was born and raised in Malé. She has lived here for 25 years – her entire life.She left the country only once, when she went to India to get treatment for a health problem. She’s the fourth of nine siblings. Her mother has always been a hou¬sewife, and her father works for the Maldives government. She got her first job, as a receptionist in this hotel in the center of Malé, 5 years ago, and has been working here ever since. She recently decided to take lessons to become a cake decorator and soon she will open her own shop.She works 6 days a week, 8 hours a day, and she does both day and night shifts. Her monthly salary is MVR 6,000, or around USD 400.

Bogotà, Colombia - Juan Carlos Salazan, 19
Juan Carlos was born and raised on the outskirts of Bogotà, where he still lives today.He went to school until the age of 18. Then he decided to stop studying and start looking for job. Almost a year ago, he found a job at a small pharmacyin the northern part of Bogotà (the richest part of the city).He works as a delivery boy, bringing medicines to the pharmacy's customers at home (using his bike). He works 12 hours a day, and he makes an average of 35 deliveriesper day. He likes this job for the moment, but he dreams of working for the Air Force.He works around 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, and he gets COP 32,000 (around USD 12) a day.

Malé, Maldives - Ahmed Sajid, 23
Ahmed was born and raised on Nilandhoo, a small island in the Faafu Atoll.Four years ago he moved to Malé, the capital, to study at the police academy. “I wanted to become a policeman. That has been my dream ever since I was a kid but, unfortunately, just a few months after I graduated, I had a bad accident. Now I have a physical problem that prevents me from working as a police¬man.” Six months ago he found his first job, at the Malé airport. He works in the check-in, boarding, and arrivals areas.He does both day and night shifts, working 8 hours a day, 6 days a week. He earns MVR 11,000, or about USD 700, per month.

Portland, Oregon (USA) - Kirsten Southwell, 24
Kirsten was born in Michigan but she grow up in North Carolina, where she studied to become a graphic designer. A couple of months after finishing university, she found her first job, in Portland. She’s working as an “Experience Designer” for Second Story, a studio that works for museums and art galleries.She works an average of 9 hours a day, 5 days a week. Sometimes she works also on Saturdays. She has a salary of USD 55,000 a year, which means around USD 28 an hour.

Barcelona, Spain - Jose Antonio Caparros, 64
Jose was born in Barcelona, into a family of fishermen.When he was 17, he started to work on his father’s boat andhe has never changed jobs since. The only thing that has changed during those 50 years is that, at the age of 40, he became the boat’s captain.Every day, Jose takes the boat out at 4:00 a.m. He comes back into the port at 4:00 p.m., so he works around 12 hours a day.There are 3 other people on the boat with him.Jose works 12 hours a day, 5-6 days a week, and he gets around EUR 1,000 a month (around USD 1,300) (his income depends a lot on the time of year; during the summer he gets around EUR 1,500)

Timouyaj, Haiti - Evenson Pierrelouis, 15
Evenson was born at home, in a small house on the beach of Timouyaj. Both he and his older brother still live at home with their parents. He started school in Jacmel 4 years ago, and he still has 6 years to go before he finishes. Every day, when he comes home from school, he works with his brother making small papier-mâché models of hummingbirds. Then, every weekend, he goes to the beach to sell them to the tourists.He sells his papier-mâché models for 500 Haitian Gourdes (HTG), or about USD 8.5, each.He then divides the money with his older brother, who takes two-thirds of the income.On a good weekend he can sell about 15 of his birds.

Xiting, Fujian province, China - Mao Chao, 20
Mao Chao was born and raised in Hù Bèi province, in China.When he was 17, he left school and moved to the Fujian province. “There are many more job opportunities here,” he told me.Since then, he has been working as a metalworker for the same construction company. He’s specialized in cutting. He spends almost the whole day in the basement at the construction site, cutting metal poles of different sizes.He works 8.5 hours a day. He doesn’t have a real schedule for days off.He works almost every day, and he only asks the boss for a day off when he’s tired.He gets RMB 5,000 a month (around USD 750).

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – Silberth Ferrera, 26
Silberth was born and raised in the state of Minas Gerais, in the central part of Brazil.When he was 15, he moved to Rio to find a job.“I’m from a really poor family. We always lived in a favela, and here in Rio I still live in a favela. My house is really small, but I have a nice view of Ipanema,” he says pointing towards Morro do Cantagalo, the favela that overlooks the beach.Silberth started selling caipirinhas on the beach a couple of weeks after his arrival in Rio, and now he’s been doing it every day for over 10 years.“This is not a legal job, but it’s my first and only job,” he says.He works 7 days a week, from 10 in the morning until sunset. He sells an average of 25 caipirinhas per day, at a price of 20 reais (BRL), or about USD 6, each.

Taichung, Taiwan - Mei-Ling Chiang, 30
Mei-Ling was born and raised in Yunlin. She’s the third of four siblings. After high school she moved to Tainan for four years to study pharmacology.At the age of 23, she finished school and immediately started to work in the pharmacy of one of her former teachers.She hasn’t changed jobs since. She’s now becoming an expert in traditional Chinese medicine. She dreams of opening her own traditional pharmacy one day.She works 5 days a month for 8 hours a day, and she gets TWD 53,000 a month (around USD 1,600).