Doomed....Google lays off contractors, founder says contractors expenses "really high

[Purple Dalek]

Originally Posted by Mich the Tester

As I said, maybe where you are that's the case, but not here.

I think maybe you're all mixing up a PSL of agencies and a PSL of consultancies. Agencies tend to work on thin margins, but not all are so transparent as the client thinks, then there are the consultancies that literally ream the clients.

[Mich the Tester]

Originally Posted by Purple Dalek

I think maybe you're all mixing up a PSL of agencies and a PSL of consultancies. Agencies tend to work on thin margins, but not all are so transparent as the client thinks, then there are the consultancies that literally ream the clients.

Yes but some clients, rather naively, don’t distinguish between the two, with the consequence that freelancers are placed at consultancy rates for the customer and paid normal freelance rates with no transparency at all.

[Another Dodgy Agent]

Originally Posted by Mich the Tester

As I said, maybe where you are that's the case, but not here.

The solution then is simple. You need to move!

[AtW]

The only suprising thing in their announcement is that they plan to cut so many (all contractors?) in one go so early - their staff costs are very high, I'd imagine permies are actually very very expensive but cutting them is more difficult and puts them into bad light, so better not to renew 10k contractors. That's the kind of typical thing you'd expect from Microsoft, don't do evil my ...

[Purple Dalek]

Originally Posted by AtW

The only suprising thing in their announcement is that they plan to cut so many (all contractors?) in one go so early - their staff costs are very high, I'd imagine permies are actually very very expensive but cutting them is more difficult and puts them into bad light, so better not to renew 10k contractors. That's the kind of typical thing you'd expect from Microsoft, don't do evil my ...

Actually I think it sounds like one of these announcements for the benefit of the stock market. To you or me it is patently brain dead, but to traders it is music to their ears. BT did the same thing only a few days ago.

[AtW]

Originally Posted by Purple Dalek

Actually I think it sounds like one of these announcements for the benefit of the stock market.

They tried to avoid this being too public, by law they should have made announcement to the stock market if they were making permie layoffs but instead they decided to get rid of 10k contractors, funny because one of the permie perks there is 20% of time used on your own, effectively from financial point of view it means permie base can be reduced by a large number.

[Liability]

I can not see them doing it in one small phase - Google rely heavily on Contractors and many of them have been there years. Microsoft would be on the prowl for a start to take them with a higher rate due to the knowledge they may have.

[AtW]

Originally Posted by Liability

Google rely heavily on Contractors and many of them have been there years.

They shift them from one job to another in order to avoid Microsoft's problem of having those contractors asking for permanent benefits, so eliminating those could be easy because if someone spends 3-4 months on one job and moves to another is not going to be working on something super strategic - those people who did were surely offered plenty of money to become permie and it would have been hard to resist given share price increases of the past.

[d000hg]

Google are working on a huge number of applications at any time, many of them brand new and non-mainstream. They could can loads of secondary projects which are really only adding tangential value.

[Liability]

Originally Posted by AtW

They shift them from one job to another in order to avoid Microsoft's problem of having those contractors asking for permanent benefits, so eliminating those could be easy because if someone spends 3-4 months on one job and moves to another is not going to be working on something super strategic - those people who did were surely offered plenty of money to become permie and it would have been hard to resist given share price increases of the past.

Well the good ones they just keep and bench at home - I know as have a previous colleague who has been with them for 4 years now. For what he does he is VERY well paid at just near 900 a day which outside of Google would be 500 a day. When there arent projects they keep them at home and the higher up you are the more they throw money at you if you dont want to go perm.