Perm is more relax, however, over the time, you loss skill.
I am a old IT professional, I have done contract for a few years, then become perm for a couple of years until now.
Not sure I can go back to contract unless I have to upgrade my skill.
One of the reason I go perm is that it is more stable and you can arrange when to take holiday, and much easier for life. I get 30% pay cut when become perm. However, company pay you for oversea travel/training, annual leave etc benefit,in the end not much differences. The bad part of contract is when you change jobs, you loss the premium, for example, you started $50/H, after 2-3 year, you earn up to $58/h (annual increase 4-5%), once you change jobs, you may go back to $50/h to start with. Unless you upgrade your skill (in some special area), you may earn up $75-$150/h (however, not many opportunity for this type jobs, and normally have longer waiting period). The really good part for contract is overtime, Contractor love overtime, 1-2 hours each day plus weekend, this will increase your earning capacity a lot, contractor normally does not take annual leave, so it is easy to earn $120K+ per year even at $50/h rate. At good old days, you get a new job before you finished current one, but at bad time, you may need wait a few months to get a new one.
Another reason don't want to go back contractor is that most of the jobs are in city, you have to travel (by train or public transport) everyday, start early and finish late. A city job shall offer at least $30K more than the suburb job to be attractive. (after tax of 30K is about $15K-$18K, then deduct travel/lunch/other additional cost + additional time spent on travel, you did not benefit much.) |