Spin, spin, spinnity spindoctory.

[RichardCranium]

The reason I am so sodding cross about this, is that the article is likely to be quoted elsewhere as a press release would.

"ContractorUK surveyed its members and they said the effect of the recession was negligible on them"

whereas that does not seem to be what the numbers are saying.

Thanks, CUK. We can now expect that to be added to the pile of arguments for hating contractors, and removed from the pile of reasons for doing something about visas and Intra Company Transfers.

Thanks. Thanks for the great disservice.

[HeadOfTesting]

WHS. The article seemed like a work of fiction.

Indeed - the article claims that testing was one of the areas least impacted by the collapse!

[MrMark]

I read it as for 1/3rd of the contractors the impact was negligible.

Who cares about the other two thirds?
I'm beginning to see how revolutions start

[OwlHoot]

A few months ago some so-called independent marketing outfit was nagging me to do a phone survey, which I kept postponing.

When I finally relented, to get them off my back, one of the first few questions went "When the recovery starts at the end of this year, ...". I declined to continue at that point.

I'm very wary of these supposed "surveys". It's obvious most seem to have some kind of agenda, which may not be to our advantage.

[MPwannadecentincome]

I read it as for 1/3rd of the contractors the impact was negligible.

[TimberWolf]

The reality is: the market is stuffed. Contracting is currently high risk and low return. The government is making things worse. It is not looking good for 2010.

WHS. The article seemed like a work of fiction.

[RichardCranium]

From here of all places.

more than 75% of contractors said they invoiced for at least three of the year’s four quarters. Moreover, more than a third of all the contractors who nominated said they were not personally affected by the recession, suggesting that their downtime in 2009 was negligible.

= over 20% of contractors did not invoice for over three months of 2009; over half were personally effected by the recession.

That does NOT suggest a negligible effect.

But whether CUK contractors found 2009 difficult – 14 per cent only billed for half of the year <snip> 11 per cent of the total respondents who say they only submitted invoices for just one of the year’s four quarters.

So 25% were out of a gig for half the year or longer.

A funny sort of "negligible".


Presumably, ContractorUK needs to hype up contracting as part of its marketing, and thereby pretend there isn't really a problem here, but that doesn't stop such spindoctory being a load of bollocks.


The reality is: the market is stuffed. Contracting is currently high risk and low return. The government is making things worse. It is not looking good for 2010.