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Silicon Valley's Dirty Secret: Using a Shadow Workforce of Contract Employees To Drive Profits (cnbc.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: As the gig economy grows, the ratio of contract workers to regular employees in corporate America is shifting. Google, Facebook, Amazon, Uber and other Silicon Valley tech titans now employ thousands of contract workers to do a host of functions -- anything from sales and writing code to managing teams and testing products. This year at Google, contract workers outnumbered direct employees for the first time in the company's 20-year history. It's not only in Silicon Valley. The trend is on the rise as public companies look for ways to trim HR costs or hire in-demand skills in a tight labor market. The U.S. jobless rate dropped to 3.7 percent in September, the lowest since 1969, down from 3.9 percent in August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Some 57.3 million Americans, or 36 percent of the workforce, are now freelancing, according to a 2017 report by Upwork. In San Mateo and Santa Clara counties alone, there are an estimated 39,000 workers who are contracted to tech companies, according to one estimate by University of California Santa Cruz researchers. Spokespersons at Facebook and Alphabet declined to disclose the number of contract workers they employ. A spokesperson at Alphabet cited two main reasons for hiring contract or temporary workers. One reason is when the company doesn't have or want to build out expertise in a particular area such as doctors, food service, customer support or shuttle bus drivers. Another reason is a need for temporary workers when there is a sudden spike in workload or to cover for an employee who is on leave.
From TFA:
>> Contract workers tend to fill more "grind it out type roles" that need manpower or less senior roles
>> workers with jobs in higher wages are more likely to have their services contracted out than jobs associated with lower wages. Such "alternative" work arrangements are becoming more common among older and more educated workers.
Perhaps you could explain why it's a good thing first.
And if you use the words "self-employed", you are disqualified. >90% of these contractors work for staffing firms.
I am one of these contract workers. I like it fine. I'm getting a better rate per hour than I ever did in any other job, I work from home, and I have complete control over when and how much I work. I suspect my client is willing to put up with this precisely because I don't cost them anything when I'm not working.
However, I like it fine because I'm disabled. I get government money to help me along when my paycheck isn't enough, and I get (currently) zero copay healthcare from the state I live in.
People worry quite alot that small businesses are dying, because many kinds of them are. The "mom and pop" store can't do shit against Amazon. The thing is, Silicon Valley startups are also small businesses, and the fact they sometimes manage to sucker in venture capitalists sometimes doesn't make them not small businesses. They're 3-5 dudes who know how to code who have an idea about how use code to make something easier or more marketable. Because they're paying Silicon Valley rent, they can't afford real employees until such time as they do happen to land that VC money. Even then, that money isn't theirs to fuck around with, and I'm sure the field is littered with startups that were too good to too many people.
The upshot of this is that the kind and amount of work that is best available today isn't enough to sustain a person by itself, and it's not solely because of exploitative employers. This is why universal healthcare and universal basic income will be important ideas going forward. The commodification of labor isn't going to be around forever, and while it persists, it's going to change alot. More automation means more people who do work at all do it the way I do. I can tolerate this arrangement because I basically already have the benefits of universal healthcare and basic income. I'd like them to be universal. People need to be free of the fear of homelessness and starvation for work to legitimately be anything but slavery. I want other people to be free the way I am, and I'd like them to not need to be some kind of cripple to get it.
I see the gig economy as an opportunity for older tech workers like me. Most companies don't want to hire a near-60-something as a permanent employee, but have no problems with signing me to a contract. I'm not ready to retire yet, but I do have, to quote a movie, "...are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career."
Most companies need my particular skills for a big project maybe up to a year, two at the outside. At the end, I train a lower-paid permanent employee to manage things, then I move on having added whatever new skills I picked up during the gig to my resume. Since it's always a short-term gig with a deadline, I can charge extortionate hourly rates and work lots of overtime and everybody's happy. Then I can add another blurb to my resume "Implemented widget sorting system at BigCo" and add another 5 bucks an hour to my rate. Win-win.
I do work for a staffing firm. It's sort of a pimp-hooker-john relationship. They're my pimp and do a good job of finding me another john (job) when I'm done with the current contract.
- Pithy comment goes here.
... shares a similar dark secret.
There are more contractors hired by the military than there are actual military headcount.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
I used to contract. At first I thought I was getting paid more, but then I found out I needed to pay an accountant $2K a year and health coverage for my family was easily $600/month. And I'm in Canada so that is basically for dental coverage. Add to that the stress of always having to worry about 'the next gig' and contracting definitely wasn't worth it for me.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
As far as the "violence", you are cherry-picking incidents and individuals. I can do the same with conservatives.
No you can't.
Steve Scilise was shot
8 other GOP members were shot at in same incident
Rand Paul's ribs were broken
Rand Paul was attacked at airport and has been given death threats
Sarah Sanders was attacked going out to eat
Ted Cruz was attacked going out to eat, twice
Mitch McConnel was attacked going out to eat
One GOP candidate was attacked with a knife at an event
Response from DNC. Maxine Waters says to do more of it, Corey Booker says do more of it, Eric Holder says to do more of it.
Show me DNC members being shot and GOP congressmen saying they support it and there should be more of it. You can't because you lied. You can't help lying because you are a liberal.
LOL. Do you really think that Google contracts out more than half of its workforce so that it can pay them anywhere near $200+/hour?
If that is the case, then you either are not good at negotiating your rates/work rules with the contracting house....or you don't know enough about the business to know to move onto the next one.
One thing to do, however, is to incorporate yourself, it is much easier to contract as an individual 1009 if you are incorporated and do corp-to-corp. Contracting 1099 to an individual scares the shit out of companies, as they can get stung like MS did years back by contractors coming back to sue to claim employee-hood.
If you incorporate, even the contract houses will often work with you and take a smaller finders fee cut....sometimes just a cut for first few months of contract, then, the whole bill rate is yours.
This can be a lucrative business, but you have to put on your "big boy" pants, and learn to manage yourself, promote yourself, do paperwork, taxes AND how to budget your negotiated bill rate to cover your pay, time off, and retirement funds yourself.
It isn't rocket surgery, but along with higher dollars and more freedom, comes more personal responsibility.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........