Reply to: Newbie wannabe contractor posts

[LondonManc]

Good luck with that but that isn't possible for a lot of us. Problem is a lot of clients are getting in contractors and treating them like permanent employees with the exception of the costly stuff like 'holiday' and 'benefits' and a lot of contractors are happy to be treated that way.

Totally agree. Even when you've got a bit of a niche skillset, you'll still be treated as just another contingent worker, unless you come in direct.

[SussexSeagull]

or out into becoming proper freelancers...

I'm very much pushing for that option and hope the tools I'm writing to licence will make it worthwhile.

Good luck with that but that isn't possible for a lot of us. Problem is a lot of clients are getting in contractors and treating them like permanent employees with the exception of the costly stuff like 'holiday' and 'benefits' and a lot of contractors are happy to be treated that way.

[eek]

That's been going on for years.

Local councils were caught doing it years ago with temps and were shamed by the unions and press to give people permanent jobs, as a result they resorted to zero hours contracts....

It's worse than that at the moment. Due to Austerity most councils cannot recruit until you've failed to find anyone on at risk list. At current clientco that's approximately 1000 workers who will slowly over the next 3 years be made redundant as budgets disappear.

So if you advertise for a permanent IT project manager you end up having to take a supposedly qualified one from buildings and maintenance. So to ensure you get one who is actually useful you bring them in as a contractor and pray no one notices.

Out of the department of 50 I'm working in there are 20 contractors of which only 2 are specialist contractors (me and 1 other). The others are bum on seat people who in an ideal world would be employees.

[eek]

This will be the thing that eventually drags genuine, as in choose to be, contractors into paying full NI/PAYE.

or out into becoming proper freelancers...

I'm very much pushing for that option and hope the tools I'm writing to licence will make it worthwhile.

[SussexSeagull]

And finally others note a problem I've known about for years which the IPSE still haven't picked up on.

There are an awful lot of people who contract / freelance because that's the only work available to them not because they want to.

This will be the thing that eventually drags genuine, as in choose to be, contractors into paying full NI/PAYE.

[LondonManc]

That's been going on for years.

Local councils were caught doing it years ago with temps and were shamed by the unions and press to give people permanent jobs, as a result they resorted to zero hours contracts....

Which is a bit of an own goal by the unions, but hardly surprising given they're still living in the 1970s.

[SueEllen]

Here's the budget but you currently can't add anyone to payroll.

The latter bit is incredibly common in the public sector at the moment.

That's been going on for years.

Local councils were caught doing it years ago with temps and were shamed by the unions and press to give people permanent jobs, as a result they resorted to zero hours contracts....

[LondonManc]

Here's the budget but you currently can't add anyone to payroll.

The latter bit is incredibly common in the public sector at the moment.

Oh dear. Then these clowns get some sort of delusions of adequacy and end up in the grey world of unemployed but employed at the same time. Cue the unemployment surge next May.

[eek]

Fair enough; it's more a question of how they're getting selected that's an issue then. Can't imagine the conversation that leads to bringing in a graduate contractor.

Here's the budget but you currently can't add anyone to payroll.

The latter bit is incredibly common in the public sector at the moment.

[LondonManc]

And finally others note a problem I've known about for years which the IPSE still haven't picked up on.

There are an awful lot of people who contract / freelance because that's the only work available to them not because they want to.

Fair enough; it's more a question of how they're getting selected that's an issue then. Can't imagine the conversation that leads to bringing in a graduate contractor.

[eek]

Ah right. Contractors straight in from uni for me is a big threat to the contractor badge; hence my suggestion that there needs to be a specialist market and a cattletractor market.

And finally others note a problem I've known about for years which the IPSE still haven't picked up on.

There are an awful lot of people who contract / freelance because that's the only work available to them not because they want to.

[LondonManc]

I was more making a general point about zero hour contracts, large companies squeezing smaller suppliers and the above mention getting contractors in straight from University.

Ah right. Contractors straight in from uni for me is a big threat to the contractor badge; hence my suggestion that there needs to be a specialist market and a cattletractor market.

[SussexSeagull]

I don't think Brexit will have anything to do with it. The realisation that outsourcing doesn't deliver the value that it is intended to is an exercise that each organisation must endure.

I was more making a general point about zero hour contracts, large companies squeezing smaller suppliers and the above mention getting contractors in straight from University.

[LondonManc]

It is just another way go business passing on risk to employees and suppliers. I don't see it getting any better post-Brexit.

I don't think Brexit will have anything to do with it. The realisation that outsourcing doesn't deliver the value that it is intended to is an exercise that each organisation must endure.

[SussexSeagull]

Potentially a shift to a new way of operating? There may be a need to become a specialist MSC if the market accepts that cheap contractors can exist straight out of uni.

It is just another way go business passing on risk to employees and suppliers. I don't see it getting any better post-Brexit.