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> Lawrence Dearth, the president of staffing company Insight Global, Instead of naming your staffing company like a nondescript CIA front, why not call it "Dearth of Talent"? No one would ever forget it. Maybe it can be a cold-call icebreaker, too.
I read "Lawrence Death" the first time.
> There’s no way I want to go back ... making half the amount. IMHO, if a company lays off an employee, and then wants them back as a contractor/consultant, the tasteful offer is that the money doubles , not halves .
1. Most companies aren’t in the business of making tasteful offers. 2. Why would they double this person’s pay? This person no longer has a job and needs one!
That's why hiring contractors is usually more expensive per hour than hiring full time staff.
It don't want to sound insensitive, but same employer or not, being a contractor is different. For starters, your career is less subject to office politics. Or you feel far less pressure to take work home. Don't like to gig, look for something. You're hired to do a job. Do it. No more. No less. There is for some, comfort in that. The one surprise from the article is that the gross pay is the same. Typically, contract…
Contractors are well paid (per day) when they are in a "short term consulting role" for a company that doesn't need a permanent position. When the role is "a body for the shop when the workload is high enough", the contractor is the least valued class in the team, paid less with less benefits, and first to cut when load or funding drops.
We've got people who own, or are, established independent businesses whose customers are other businesses. In white collar work these roles are generally called "consultants". In blue collar work they are often "contractors" or "sub-contractors".
We've got temp agencies who provide temporary or permatemp employees to other companies, where the temporary employee may or may not have any guarantee of long-term employment by the temp agency, but are almost guaranteed to have stretches of time in which they aren't compensated, even if they do. These roles are "temps" or "permatemps", but often get called "contractors", though the real "contractor" is the temp agency. The jobs described in the article fall in this bin.
We've got people who directly fill roles for spec pay. I guess these days these roles are called "gig work".
I think the word "contractor" should be reserved for talking about non-employee labor, or business-to-business labor, in general. Even then there are edge cases (like catering) that I'm not sure belong here, or belong in the non-contract business-to-customer category. The more specific terms should be used for the particular type of job (Consultant/Sub-contractor, temp/permatemp, gig worker).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
1. Most companies aren’t in the business of making tasteful offers. 2. Why would they double this person’s pay? This person no longer has a job and needs one!
> Why would they double this person’s pay? This person no longer has a job and needs one! Because he's contracting now. Contractors typically don't take jobs for salary level pay, let alone _less_ that salary level pay. The main reason we charge more is to cover costs for insurance, and all the other things a company would normally pay for — but it's also because we don't _need_ the job, _they_ need the job filled.
I’m not a lawyer, but I have a vague idea about my rights and firing people to hire them as contractors instead is illegal in both jurisdictions I know, France and Norway. Firing people to hire contractors instead is risky because you need a reason to fire people. The reason could be economical, but one could easily argue in court that if the company is hiring contractors instead, well, it was not the real reason. Th…
I came here to say the same. In the UK you can't be made redundant if there is other work you could do at the company. Also in the UK contractors are paid a lot more than full time staff!
low level staff maybe
the big earners in UK finance are employees
contractors don't get a bonus
Here is a possible silver lining, if you do go back and make half the wage, give yourself a time limit of putting in a quarter as much time as your previous full time role. This gives your earning power per time a raise, and lets you take on multiple contract roles if you desire. Don’t forget to live life with more time.
It’s funny how in Sweden it’s exactly the other way around: Coming back as a (self-employed) contractor is like hitting the jackpot, you typically double your pay. Companies here even have policies to prevent employees switching over to contracting (for the same company). You have to work for some other company for at least a year.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sadly, I've been seeing the opposite. My large company keeps hiring groups of contractors out of India. They are low-quality and low-paid and are there for minor feature conversions. However, we see the company keeping them over strong employees every round of layoffs. The levels of technical debt someone will have to deal with in the future is absurd.
> They are low-quality and I think I know them, they are /producing/ low-quality /results/, but I woulnd't go THAT far.
I’m not a lawyer, but I have a vague idea about my rights and firing people to hire them as contractors instead is illegal in both jurisdictions I know, France and Norway. Firing people to hire contractors instead is risky because you need a reason to fire people. The reason could be economical, but one could easily argue in court that if the company is hiring contractors instead, well, it was not the real reason. Th…
I came here to say the same. In the UK you can't be made redundant if there is other work you could do at the company. Also in the UK contractors are paid a lot more than full time staff!
And in your scenario, wouldn't voluntary redundancy get really weird? 'Denied - because you're qualified for a job in a different department. So keep doing your current one or resign.'