What will the coming recession mean for the contractor job market?

[Lance]

cost saving projects
and security projects...

loads of them

[Chris Bryce]

Was boom time 2008 onwards .... recessions should be good for skilled contractors. I started contracting in 2007 and was never out of contractor ...
fill ya boots!

To a certain extent this.

The crash in 2008 did put loads of people out of work, but IME mostly permies. Contractors did well (albeit with rate cuts). I'd expect a slight shift by end-users away from permies to contingent labour pretty much across the board. Contingent labour is far more easily obtained and far more cheaply disposable than permanent staff.

[Whorty]

To a certain extent this.

The crash in 2008 did put loads of people out of work, but IME mostly permies. Contractors did well (albeit with rate cuts). I'd expect a slight shift by end-users away from permies to contingent labour pretty much across the board. Contingent labour is far more easily obtained and far more cheaply disposable than permanent staff.

Exactly ... hence why the contract market during recessions (in my skill set anyway) booms.

[WTFH]

cost saving projects...
loads of them

I concur with that.
Big emphasis on justifying projects in terms of employee headcount and TCOS.

[Whorty]

I concur with that.
Big emphasis on justifying projects in terms of employee headcount and TCOS.

Regulatory projects, process improvement/automation projects, company mergers/takeovers ..... always projects to deliver for contractors.

[jamesbrown]

All times are boom times for contractors, but especially times of panic and upheaval

[_V_]

Get yourself a contract in the defence industries - we're going to war!

My step daughter has just been hired by the MOD, she's an IT bod too!

[Gibbon]

Get yourself a contract in the defence industries - we're going to war!

[BlueSharp]

Less sexy greenfield projects, much the same for the cost saving IT projects. Antidotally it looks like the IT projects on offer are already shifting from growth to cost saving.

[Lost It]

Always been presumed in my industry that once the building starts slowing down the country is truly in a recession.

Now I can quite see many major road building, and possibly railway works being upended/stopped/cancelled to help fill the hole, from my point of view I have never been so busy, the 4M's are all in place, Motivation, Manpower, Materials, Money that are needed for construction to carry on, and I'm refusing work left right and centre because I really need to take a bit of time off, and I don't feel that it is risky at the moment to turn down work.

But whilst there is building and cranes above the skyline in the major cities, the country is still turning money over. No-one can see into the future but I do know contracts are still being awarded, even contracts we call "Framework" which means basically Government jobs. Some framework jobs for MOJ have been held off, and some unexpected ones are cropping up.

So I'm not seeing a recession just yet, a slowing down in my trade perhaps but it always tends to slow down around Xmas.