[jdhn]

His paragraph about jobs is spot on. I've seen this in my own workplace on a team that is 75% contractors and 25% full time employees. Contractors are seen as completely replaceable, and if one leaves they'll be replaced with another one after a quick round of interviews. However, if a full time employee leaves, the process to replace them seems to take much longer as it appears that those doing the hiring are looking for The Superstar. I'm not sure how to fix this, or if it's even possible to fix.

[sokoloff]

What's to fix? Contractors don't have the same shadow of having to pay out severance or even the emotional investment of having to fire an employee.

It seems perfectly natural that management would be much more selective for permanent employee hires than for contractors.

[xt00]

I think people could argue that even years ago many workplaces have been sort of bifurcated between people that would be "first to fire" and those that were "integral", but these days it appears that its become more institutionalized by the use of the contractor and full time employee classes -- I would say generally not a great trend.. seems better to at least allow the illusion to people that are initially considered as less important to have a chance to become more important within the company..

[newshorts]

You’re touching on something that may affect these companies medium/long term.

The fact that there’s a class divide among workers now naturally selects out many workers that otherwise might be incentivized to create more wealth for the company. This could have long term consequences in industries that formerly relied on innovation.

[unreal37]

The fix is to always hire contractors, let the bad ones go, and convert the good ones to full time if you can.

[Hermitian909]

In any industry where good employees are in high demand (like tech) this strategy has the unfortunate effect of filtering out most individuals who are both good employees and experienced. None of the really good software engineers I know would accept this arrangement unless the contracting wages were a ridiculous multiplier of their normal salary.

[antt]

Really? Because I wouldn't accept a normal salary unless it was 20% higher than my contracting rates. Because I go through my own company I get to minimize my taxes so much that regular employment seems like a ripoff by comparison.

[Hermitian909]

Yes really.

First, for a number of positions, salary can make up less than 70% of total compensation. Things like healthcare, stock options, bonuses, PTO, etc. are worth quite a lot of money. To make up for that you need a good multiplier on salary.

Second, unemployment benefits and the possibility of severance offer increased stability that many find both useful and comforting, this is another multiplier on the salary number.

Third, and I think most importantly, the person I'm responding is looking at contractors who want to be employees. We can even set aside the fact that such people, in my experience, rarely set up corporations are do the research to find the tax savings you achieve (kudos on that). If you're an in-demand professional there are people who will hire you on terms you like. Every really good software developer I know with over 4 years of experience never spends more than a couple weeks on the market and are flooded with offers, why bother with some contracting "test" when they could have a good job today? The people I'm acquainted with would only subject themselves to that for giant gobs of money.

[tonyedgecombe]

When I was contracting I would always get an offer towards the end of my contracts. I never accepted as I enjoyed the clearer supplier/customer relationship you get with contracting. Most of my peers refused because it rarely made financial sense.

[unreal37]

Yes, same with me. Sometimes I would accept. And sometimes I would not.

Sometimes this conversation happened during the original job interview. "Would you consider going full time ever?" Good to have that conversation sometimes.

[jdhn]

This is what should happen, but doesn't. It could be that this is specific to my company, but it's quite rare that this actually happens. There are people who have been contractors for 10+ years.