[malz]

Fair, but what's in it for the company? Why pay me a huge hourly rate when they could hire an employee for less? There are various answers to this: specialized knowledge, limited engagement, and so on. But it's important to establish your value as a consultant along these lines.

[MichaelBurge]

Employees are extremely undesirable to have. They're highly regulated, and mean that you have to hire HR departments to mitigate the constant risk of being sued. And there are many many regulations that kick in after you have X number of employees, so many companies stay at X-1 employees until they're ready to make the jump to 2X employees.

With a consultant, you cut them a check, they do the work, and then they go away. No hassle or risk.

It's the difference between logging onto a website like Fiverr and putting in your credit card, and paying a lawyer $500/hour to help you set up an employee health care plan.