[cactus2093]

It's a learning experience! Don't feel bad, now you've learned a good lesson for future interviews.

> That said I find it crazy how big the difference is on these two conditions and am struggling a bit now to justify why I would want to go back to being an employee

As an American, I gotta say it seems like the benefits of being a full-time employee in Europe only really make sense if you plan on slacking off. It's very difficult to fire you as a full-time employee (at least in France which I am somewhat familiar with). You can skate by for years doing very little work if you want. If you are hard-working and want to deliver high quality work, I think you might be better off staying as a contractor. Or trying to get a job & a visa to come work in the US if you have any opportunities to.

[projektfu]

I did some consulting for a large employer in the UK and found that all of their programmers were contract employees. I asked one guy about it (an American) and he said that he makes so much he can spend 6 months traveling each year. At the time full-time jobs were pretty low-paid in the UK relative to US standards. I wondered if the flexibility the large employer got was worth the approximately 200-300% premium it was paying to hire contractors, although perhaps talented devs wouldn't work for the lower stable wage.

[namaria]

I don't disagree, but you have to consider the fact that we seem to be ending a good two decades boom, and contractors/freelancers will be the first to go. Having a permanent contract here in the Netherlands makes it super expensive to fire someone so the lesser salaries come with a big expectation of continuity in hard times or a nice retroactive adjustment in form of a big severance payout.