I fit into this category and my anecdotal experience tells me that hiring managers favor contractors for that reason as well as the fact that the money to pay them sometimes is listed as a different line-item on the budget. I think the combination of the two helps as well - when looking at a large contractor line-item, knowing that it can be scaled back with less headache than a Full Time Employee (FTE) makes it easier to stomach I think.
If you're comfortable with hustling for work when the time comes, then contracting can be a much better arrangement. I work from home, basically whenever I want, and I make more money than I would as a FTE (even when factoring in the outrageous cost of health insurance these days).
The biggest thing I think is the mental shift. As a FTE, there's a stronger sense of job security. But really, layoffs happen all the time and as a FTE I feel like I'd be less prepared to find another job, whereas being a contractor means I have to constantly be thinking about the future.
You don't want your gig job? Man you have to HUSTLE. You have to have the ENERGY. You have to want to be SUCCESSFUL more then you want to SLEEP. Bill Gates HUSTLED. Steve Jobs HUSTLED. Kobe Bryant HUSTLED. If you aren't successful its YOUR fault.
Yeah, and these gigs aren't the best thing around for sure. But I wonder where people would be without them, you know? Would it be huge unemployment? Or would conventional employees be the result?
They would probably be unemployed. Now we have people who are barely employed. They are paid just enough to keep them from banding together and demanding change. If they were unemployed then they'd have a lot more incentive to do something. Now they are trapped trying to keep their heads above water.
Don't think this isn't on purpose. Every last dime is getting squeezed out.
Really depends. If you think about uber then without uber or similar services then people would use taxis. The taxi drivers would get paid more due to having monopolies in most cities and fares would be outrageous.
Most of the gig type companies are able to offer lower prices to consumers at the expense of workers.
Also important to note is that uber and lyft sell their gigs as just side income, not a full time job so I think people have been fair warned that uber is not sufficient to support yourself.
I think there is a huge portion of trips taken with Lyft/Uber that would not be taken at all with a taxi. I would never take a taxi except in the most dire circumstances due to my experience of them being dirty and smoke smelling and questionable drivers, but with Uber/Lyft, I use them all the time now instead of asking family or friends for drop off/pickup at airport, or getting around the city, etc.
The taxi drivers would get paid more due to having monopolies in most cities and fares would be outrageous.
Uhh... Uber is, like, 5-6 years old in most locales, less in many. This isn't some alternative universe we have to imagine. We just have to think back to before 2010... you know, the before time. The long long ago.
And back then, taxi rates were hardly "outrageous". Hell, even today, Uber isn't necessarily that much cheaper in a lot of places.
In sparsely populated areas, taxis are sometimes even cheaper. In cities, though, it's not even a contest. Ride-sharing is 2x to 3x cheaper than a taxi in my limited dataset.
Usually high taxi fares don't go to the drivers, they go to the owners of the licenses. I think a NYC medallion used to cost $1.3 million before Uber; I don't think most of the drivers were shelling that out.
I fit into this category and my anecdotal experience tells me that hiring managers favor contractors for that reason as well as the fact that the money to pay them sometimes is listed as a different line-item on the budget. I think the combination of the two helps as well - when looking at a large contractor line-item, knowing that it can be scaled back with less headache than a Full Time Employee (FTE) makes it easier to stomach I think.
If you're comfortable with hustling for work when the time comes, then contracting can be a much better arrangement. I work from home, basically whenever I want, and I make more money than I would as a FTE (even when factoring in the outrageous cost of health insurance these days).
The biggest thing I think is the mental shift. As a FTE, there's a stronger sense of job security. But really, layoffs happen all the time and as a FTE I feel like I'd be less prepared to find another job, whereas being a contractor means I have to constantly be thinking about the future.
Pick your poison I guess.