State of the Market

[escapeUK]

Dear god man.

Literally no one can call any government led by Keir Starmer as hardline communist. If by public scroungers you are including Doctors then I suggest you train for ten years to do the job if it is that easy.

Why have all the shops gone? Ever heard of internet shopping?

Like it or not the previous government was turfed out at the last election and now someone else gets a go for five years. It's called democracy.

Educate yourself on Comrade Stamer:

"Socialist Alternatives was the British section of the International Revolutionary Marxist Tendency (IRMT), a formerly Trotskyist Pabloite group based in Paris.^[1] Being a small group in the UK, it was best known for the Marxist magazine of the same name founded in Oxford^[2] by Ben Schoendorff^[3] and partially edited by Keir Starmer from 1986 to 1987"

Yeah we've had the internet for over 20 years now, and its a crap experience for certain things for instance buying clothes and shoes. So how does that account for the loss of much of the high street in the last year or two?

We don't have democracy here. That's quite obvious.

[BlueSharp]

I've had a few enquiries this week on my availability from recruiters. Better days on the horizon?

The increase in Employers NI might bring outside IR35 assessments back into vogue so could be a glint of light in a dark budget. Better still they could scrap IR35 completely in the interest of fairness as Div will be taxed at income rates or they scrap small business rate relief on corporate tax...

[dsc]

I've done multiple concurrent contracts. At one point I had three gigs at the same time. They were all part time roles. You're assuming that every client wants 40h a week.

Nope, that's why I said "You'd need to be doing some form of consultancy where you spend way less than 40hrs a week on a client and then maybe you'll manage a couple of clients. If you do a classic bum on seat / soft dev / 40hrs a week role, you are effectively an employee with less control over you and more money in your pocket (or should I say in your company bank account)."

Never have I said it's impossible, but most of us don't work that way and it's not what clients want most of the time. Typically it's a bod they want for a full week / 40hrs and trying to paint this as a "business" is rather silly. What you've described however is how we should be operating and this I would actually call a proper business.

[ladymuck]

Nope, that's why I said "You'd need to be doing some form of consultancy where you spend way less than 40hrs a week on a client and then maybe you'll manage a couple of clients. If you do a classic bum on seat / soft dev / 40hrs a week role, you are effectively an employee with less control over you and more money in your pocket (or should I say in your company bank account)."

Never have I said it's impossible, but most of us don't work that way and it's not what clients want most of the time. Typically it's a bod they want for a full week / 40hrs and trying to paint this as a "business" is rather silly. What you've described however is how we should be operating and this I would actually call a proper business.

You did indeed say that, apologies. I skim-read while pretending to pay attention to something else and should have just done one thing at a time

[oliverson]

Its not close because even though the polls are neck and neck, because its an Electoral College the Democrats need to win by 3%+ points to stand any chance of winning the EC. Clinton won the popular vote by 2.1% but failed to win the EC , Biden won by 4.5% and so was able to win the EC.

The Democrats are now left hoping the Polls are underestimating Harris support by 3%. And she is really 3% ahead of Trump and the polls just are not showing it.

Or hoping they can pull a stunt with those dominion voting machines?!

[dsc]

You did indeed say that, apologies. I skim-read while pretending to pay attention to something else and should have just done one thing at a time

No probs, but I think it raises an interesting point ie. what is classed as a business and how "outsiders" see contractors. I think to most, 40hr - one client contractors are not really seen as a business and I tend to agree. Yes I get that some jump from 3-6month contract to another 3-6month contract, but I'd still class this as temp "employment" (where all the perks are simply converted into cash). Now I'll get my coat and bugger off before I get eaten alive...

[oliverson]

I've had a few enquiries this week on my availability from recruiters. Better days on the horizon?

The increase in Employers NI might bring outside IR35 assessments back into vogue so could be a glint of light in a dark budget. Better still they could scrap IR35 completely in the interest of fairness as Div will be taxed at income rates or they scrap small business rate relief on corporate tax...

I don't see that at all, quite the opposite.

What I feel will happen is that firms won't take on new employees and instead engage people on inside IR35 contracts, so as to avoid both Employer's NI and employee rights. Either that or just not take anybody on, perhaps offshore work where it is possible to do so.

[Bluenose]

Where are you finding these jobs: 99% remote

Linkedin.

[squarepeg]

If you are a one man band you can't really operate as a proper business as there's only one of you, how are you going to manage more than say 2 clients at the same time? You'd need to be doing some form of consultancy where you spend way less than 40hrs a week on a client and then maybe you'll manage a couple of clients. If you do a classic bum on seat / soft dev / 40hrs a week role, you are effectively an employee with less control over you and more money in your pocket (or should I say in your company bank account).

I had two clients in the past, one was a bog standard outside IR35 contract, the other had a deliverable with a deadline but no hours specified, which allowed me to work before/after hours and on weekends as the client only wanted to have an actual piece of code at the end of the three-month period, regardless of how I got there. It was hard, but the money made up for it.

[Sub]

I think it raises an interesting point ie. what is classed as a business and how "outsiders" see contractors. I think to most, 40hr - one client contractors are not really seen as a business and I tend to agree. Yes I get that some jump from 3-6month contract to another 3-6month contract, but I'd still class this as temp "employment" (where all the perks are simply converted into cash).

There is just one clear differentiator between employees and businesses. Employees selling their labor (which employer uses to create products and services which he then sells) and businesses selling ready-to-consume products and services. Everything else, like length of engagement, existence of own ltd, number of hours and to the extent number of clients (however this can pointer towards business) is just bells and whistles.

Questions that needs to be asked is: would work contractor has done for their client be useful if separated from rest of client's means of production? Does it represent ready-to-use product or service?

Two examples of one-man-band ltd contractors:
1. A programmer works for 4 hours a day, writing a library for client's software allowing it to exchange data with another system (let's call it interface ). All the code becomes property of the client and client then selling the interface to their clients. Programmer not involved in any other actives around client software or other business aspects.The programmer generally working from home.

2. A programmer wrote an interface library and provides it to his client under a license and updating it according to the maintenance contract. Code of the library belongs to contractor and he is free to sell the library to any other client (however there is no other clients who would buy it, so never done). Due to nature of the client contractor need to work on the library maintenance on customer's site only, within working hours, using customer's equipment.

Despite first contractor may potentially have better ROI for their time, better earnings overall and more flexible working arrangements he is employee and second contractor is a business. The difference is that first sells labor that becomes part of their client's product, the written code has no use without it. Second sells complete product (library) which is then also incorporated into client's own product and the service contract, amount of labor second contractor is spending is no concern of the client. And both of the examples may represent same person.

To be fair if one will spend some time on reviewing any particular engagement, it will be quite clear if that is employment or B2B relationship, complexity comes from policy perspective as without detailed view those two may look quite alike.