Wouldn't you prefer to hire contractors to fill short-term demand and transition them to full employees if the demand ends up being more robust than expected?
> I'm guessing many of the full-time people they hired wouldn't have taken an offer as a contractor.
Speaking for myself, personally, if I were to join a role as a contractor basis rather than a full timer, I would expect extra compensation to justify the added risk of being laid off whenever. Hiring people by telling them they're full time, and then laying them off and treating them like contractors, is a breach of faith by management by hiding the risk factor of "demand after COVID will return to normal level" behind pretty promises. They made some extra profit by underpaying the nominally full time workers who were left carrying the extra risk of losing job, and it's showing now.
Coming to US from Europe - in US employees are contractors(hi at will employment), actual contractors are just people who are smart enough to know that.
Well, contractors don't get severance when their contract ends, whereas layoffs for employees are typically attended by some small payout. That's not much but it's not nothing. Contractors also have to deal with their own taxes and buy their own insurance (for worse rates).
Of course, if I were a contractor I could probably get double my current salary ... but I'd still rather be an employee, even in the face of at-will employment. Particularly given that my employer is doing great and didn't over-hire during COVID.
My brother has a degree in Aeronautical Engineering, and contract work was his foot in the door to a full-time developer position at Amazon.
When I quit my contractor job, subcontracted out to a defense contractor over 20 years ago, the primary contractor offered to hire me directly. It was an open secret that my employer hired people strait out of college, billed them out at very high rates, and the client was allowed to poach a top performer now and then in exchange for paying such high hourly rates. I went from being a contractor to a regular employee at a startup.
Granted, this is a sample size of two.
Though, in neither case were the contractors in question independent contractors. I suppose you're getting at that few independent contractors are willing to go back once they taste the flexibility.
I mean, yeah. I was a contractor but not an independent contractor, and I was paid like shit. My take-home has gone up nearly three times since leaving that world and joining a company full-time in 2018. Independent contractors have it much better, as long as they're able to keep work in the pipeline.
