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Is the Rise of Contract Workers Killing Upward Mobility?

knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu

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Re: Is the Rise of Contract Workers Killing Upward Mobility?

#81

Post by sporkit150 »

I come from a blue collar family and was one of the first to take a white collar job in 2007. I planned on making a long term commitment to my first employer, but spent 6 years fighting tooth and nail for more responsibility and money.

Eventually I had enough and tried jumping into contracting (but ended up in consulting). At this point my career and pay went through the roof. I'm making (literally) twice as much money now, and finally achieved the title I was after.

Most of the companies I've worked at don't value the domain knowledge their current work force has. They waste time and money taking risks on new resources like myself.

I don't feel I'm personally a bad investment, but if companies we're willing to prioritize their current work force, I wouldn't have to bounce around employers to get where I feel I'm best utilized.

Re: Is the Rise of Contract Workers Killing Upward Mobility?

#82

Post by jcun4128 »

eropple wrote: post #71
jcun4128 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: somewhat connected tangent life experience thought I'm still a noob myself but I landed a long term contract developing a web application and I like being able to bill (invoice) and just get paid. It's a surprising thing haha, I haven't been working through UpWork in a while but that's still my primary place to look. I work a more-than-part time job in a restaurant (pays my bills as a restaurant drone). I am tr…

I can empathize with your goals and your current situation, so please take this in that light: I don't come away from your post thinking that you really understand how the proper nouns in your post really fit together. My initial reaction was "this is pretty word salad-y." If you're going to write a longer thing about tech, it's probably worth investing a little bit of stylistic and structural effort into not dismiss…

I didn't mean to dismiss postgressql, I want to learn it but currently, well actually not sure about postgres with what I briefly looked at it was involving the MERN stack with regard to express (haven't used before). I think if I saw correctly you can use JavaScript not sure if plain, that's what I know how to use but not the most current ES6/TypeScript etc...

Yes I barely know these nouns I mentioned not arguing that.

Also agree with the verbose I was going to post it into a pastebin (why would anyone want to read it) but alas, it is etched into hard drive(s) somewhere, under my social mistakes.

Same thing with MongoDB, I like the idea of not having to setup a schema before using the DB, but I also have to get into the environment to start using it (talking about my current knowledge).

Edit: yes my thought process is kind of all over the place this is also the end of my day/brain spent after developing earlier today.

haha "Developing" kid and his little sandbox

Re: Is the Rise of Contract Workers Killing Upward Mobility?

#83

Post by RationPhantoms »

twobyfour wrote: post #66
wvh wrote: post #11

I've done mostly contract work because I liked the freedom when I was younger. Now I notice a lot of people my age have moved on to management or jobs "higher on the ladder" while I stress about the uncertainty of income when contracts end. I assume the lifestyle might suit people who are extraordinarily good networkers, but I feel mostly tired these days. My younger self didn't know about the fatigue the responsibil…

And contracting in a high-paying field like software development is one thing. Contracting for low-skill labor through a marketplace like Uber, TaskRabbit, Handy, etc. provides even less opportunity for any sort of career development.

I feel an odd magnetic sway towards the future envisioned in Neil Stephenson's "Snow Crash" where the gig-economy IS the economy.

Re: Is the Rise of Contract Workers Killing Upward Mobility?

#84

Post by richardknop »

sefrost wrote: post #56
zimpenfish wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> contractors grossing about 3x the salary of full time employees I dunno where you're seeing that but in the circles I move in, no-one is getting even 75% of 3xEFTE. More like 45-50% of 3xEFTE. (EFTE = Equivalent FTE. Obviously new FTEs cost a lot less.)

Central London contractors can have daily rates of 400/500 easily. That's an equivalent salary of £90k+

600/700 is not unusual in London (several of my friends are on daily rates like that). Plus you can expense a ton of things as part of business costs.

Re: Is the Rise of Contract Workers Killing Upward Mobility?

#86

Post by mcv »

twobyfour wrote: post #66
wvh wrote: post #11

I've done mostly contract work because I liked the freedom when I was younger. Now I notice a lot of people my age have moved on to management or jobs "higher on the ladder" while I stress about the uncertainty of income when contracts end. I assume the lifestyle might suit people who are extraordinarily good networkers, but I feel mostly tired these days. My younger self didn't know about the fatigue the responsibil…

And contracting in a high-paying field like software development is one thing. Contracting for low-skill labor through a marketplace like Uber, TaskRabbit, Handy, etc. provides even less opportunity for any sort of career development.

Exactly. I'm doing quite well, but I notice that the people remodelling my house make only half my hourly rate. One of them got injured on his motorbike and turns out not to have a disability insurance, because that insurance is way too expensive in his line of work.

Re: Is the Rise of Contract Workers Killing Upward Mobility?

#88

Post by logfromblammo »

jacobush wrote: post #13
briandear wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’ve heard the same argument throughout industrialization. And everything was fine. Nothing is uniquely different now. Starving blacksmith, out of work horse trainers; yet an entire new industry, the automobile essentially created from nothing that employed more, created more wealth than all horse related commerce in the history of the world. It’s arrogant to think that this time it’s different, that somehow our tec…

Exactly! Nothing will happen that a global war or two can’t sort out.

Every displaced worker can retrain as an infantry soldier within weeks.

Re: Is the Rise of Contract Workers Killing Upward Mobility?

#89

Post by bsenftner »

This mentality is far worse then the article describes. The short sighted lack of institutional knowledge is, for technology companies, a serious issue. We are knowledge workers, and we know too clearly how technology management tries to treat salaried developers as inter-changeable. Add in contract technology developers and you have a recipe for success-causes-failure situations as there are black holes in the institutional knowledge of the flagship revenue generating product the company offers.

I see time and time again, technology management not grasping it is the comprehensive solution, the product that allows customers to solve their problems without other software that make the difference. Any key technology is great, but without all the "document / project" wrapper, multiple import/export options, and API interfaces that contract developers are often tasked to create that enable the "key technology" to have the accessibility to be successful. Without all the "interface and GUI stuff" you do not have a product. That "interface and GUI stuff" is a core competency, yet technology management rarely recognizes this.

Re: Is the Rise of Contract Workers Killing Upward Mobility?

#90

Post by zimpenfish »

sefrost wrote: post #56
zimpenfish wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> contractors grossing about 3x the salary of full time employees I dunno where you're seeing that but in the circles I move in, no-one is getting even 75% of 3xEFTE. More like 45-50% of 3xEFTE. (EFTE = Equivalent FTE. Obviously new FTEs cost a lot less.)

Central London contractors can have daily rates of 400/500 easily. That's an equivalent salary of £90k+

Yeah and someone getting 400/500 a day is not going to be getting a full time salary of £30k, are they? That's where the 3xEFTE claim falls down.
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