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Recruiters Try Asking Laid Off Tech Workers to Return to the Same Companies as Contractors (seattletimes.com) 169

Posted by EditorDavid from the same-as-the-old-boss dept.
The Seattle Times reports: After losing their jobs at one of Seattle's biggest tech companies, some workers find themselves facing an unexpected question: Do you want to return to the company that just let you go?

There's a catch. Those offers, from third-party recruiters eager to place workers at the companies they just left, are for contract positions rather than staff positions. They would come with an end date, a lower salary, no benefits and no stock options.

For workers the messages range from insensitive to insulting. "We all just got the shock of our life, the last thing I need is for you to continue to ask me to go to a company that just let me go," said one former Microsoft worker who was laid off in March and asked to remain anonymous during the job hunt. Another worker who was laid off from Amazon in January and also asked to remain anonymous out of concern for future job prospects said they've heard from several recruiters looking specifically for people with Amazon experience. In one response, the former Amazonian passed this message to the recruiter: "Tell Amazon if they want an engineer, they can just not fire me later this month...."

Because companies and recruiters cast such a wide net, workers who were recently cut are still getting caught in the pool of potential candidates — whether they want to be or not... [T]ech companies often ask recruiters to find workers who have already worked at their company, particularly when hiring for a contract position that would require a worker to get up to speed quickly, said Nabeel Chowdhury, senior vice president at recruiting firm 24 Seven Talent. That's what happened with the former Amazon worker. One recruiter sent a message that began "Reaching out to see if you might be open to returning to Amazon on a contract position?"
One former Microsoft worker told the Seattle Times "I do have a sense of pride. There's no way I want to go back ... making half the amount."
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Recruiters Try Asking Laid Off Tech Workers to Return to the Same Companies as Contractors More

Recruiters Try Asking Laid Off Tech Workers to Return to the Same Companies as Contractors

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  • time to stop the fake 1099 wokers (Score:3)

    by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Sunday April 16, 2023 @11:17PM (#63454908)

    I think it will be hard to say they are true Contractors and not just Contractors in name only.

    • We used to call them "temps".

    • Re:time to stop the fake 1099 wokers (Score:5, Informative)

      by awwshit ( 6214476 ) on Sunday April 16, 2023 @11:56PM (#63454966)

      I had a long contract at an insurance company. There was a mix of employees and contractors there. As contractors we got paid a lot more but did not get benefits, couldn't use the company gym, didn't get as big of a discount in the cafeteria, etc. Once they gave out bonuses, to employees only. Didn't matter, made more than my boss there at half his age.

      • Companies are at risk of the contractors being classed as employees by the IRS if they give them access to company benefits like gyms and free food.

        That's just the IRS forcing companies to act like jerks.

        • Re:time to stop the fake 1099 wokers (Score:5, Informative)

          by GrumpySteen ( 1250194 ) on Monday April 17, 2023 @07:27AM (#63455560)

          That is BS.

          IRS rules revolve around whether a company controls the worker or not.

          Offering access to a gym and free food imposes no such control as long as there is no requirement for the contractor to take advantage of them.

          To put it in more obvious terms, a contractor taking a piss in the bathroom of a business that doesn't provide a bathroom to the general public isn't magically transformed into an employee. If the company dictates the hours the contractor will be on site and designates break times for bathroom usage, however, then there's an issue.

          • No. The business gets certain types of tax and accounting benefits when classifying certain things as employee benefits. Bathrooms are facility services that are available (and legally required) to be available for anyone who is present within the facility.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by B0mb1tll ( 8539805 )

        As a "proper/legal" contractor you are subject to different IRS rules which generally means more of your income goes out to the IRS than if you are an employee. Also, as a contractor you have to purchase your own health insurance etc.

        Those are expenses that are moved from the employer to the contractor which is why contractors are generally paid more per hour than employees.

        • Re:time to stop the fake 1099 wokers (Score:5, Informative)

          by bferrell ( 253291 ) on Monday April 17, 2023 @07:50AM (#63455640) Homepage Journal

          "as a contractor you have to purchase your own health insurance etc"

          While those expenses can be considerable:

          As an employee those things that you DO pay for are not deductible on your federal taxes

          As a contractor you're self employed and those become business expenses and directly offset gross income, reducing your taxable income and your taxes.

          THAT boys and girls is the name of the game just so you can make something of a forecast of your income and expenses will be and set money aside for
          a.) quarterly payments to taxing authorities
          b.) end of year payments, if any.

          The first year, it's a BIT nerve wracking. After that and you have an idea around how to work it, it's not so bad.

           

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Hodr ( 219920 )

            Who told you employee health insurance and 401k contributions are taxed? They are only taxed if the employer pays the employee's portion of the insurance as well as their own. Most won't need to deduct it because it won't be included in box 1 of their W-2 anyways.

            Here's what the IRS says:
            "As an employee, you can deduct any health insurance premiums that you pay out of pocket, which hasn't been reimbursed through a stipend or an HRA. COBRA and Medicare premiums can also be tax-deductible. You can reimburse

        • It depends.

          Most of the time, when you are going through an agency, you are actually an employee of the agency and receive a W-2. You don't get the Schedule C for that money.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Junta ( 36770 )

        Independent contractor I take it?

        A lot of these gigs are designed to pretty much require a middle-man. A company I worked for had an exclusivity agreement with a staffing company. The staffing company took over half off the top for anyone they provided.

        I had a short independent contracting job once and it was a lot of money for me at the time. But working with contracting companies... Well the tech employees didn't do much better than the fast food workers.

        • The pattern at this particular company was to work for the staffing agency for the first year or two, then start your own staffing company.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Merk42 ( 1906718 )

        As contractors we got paid a lot more but did not get benefits, couldn't use the company gym, didn't get as big of a discount in the cafeteria, etc. Once they gave out bonuses, to employees only. Didn't matter, made more than my boss there at half his age.

        C-Suite Employee: How about you don't get benefits and I pay you less than if you were an employee?

    • To do that you need unions (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Monday April 17, 2023 @12:02AM (#63454980)
      You need solidarity and voting blocks that come with unions and unionization and it needs to be done across all work sites. One of the most brilliant things the ruling class did was get us to unionize on a per work site basis. The people at the top are always thinking of ways to divide and conquer us.

      • Re:To do that you need unions (Score:5, Interesting)

        by DarkOx ( 621550 ) on Monday April 17, 2023 @07:14AM (#63455526) Journal

        Better question why have employees at all. Things would be much much simpler if we eliminated the class of w2 employees entirely.

        Make everyone contractors, get rid of benefits like like insurances coverage, PTO, etc, and just pay simple wages for either hours worked, pieces produced, availability upto N hours per week for the period A-B.

        That way people would be far less tied to their jobs, you would not be changing doctor because you changed jobs, you would not be changing saving pans or retirement investment strategy etc.

        All working individuals who expected to earn over 10k would just make estimated tax payments. Corporate HR would not have deal with w4s, enrollment periods, life events, and all that other stuff.

        There is no real loyalty in either direction now, we should drop the social pretense. Make everyone a free agent to move about as they please.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jmccue ( 834797 )

        Yes, and there was a law suit against IBM for doing just this. They fired some people and brought them back within a few months as contractors. I do not fully remember the outcome.

        But that suit did not stop them from still doing that.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Why Pay Seattle Prices for Remote Workers? (Score:3)

    by XopherMV ( 575514 ) on Sunday April 16, 2023 @11:18PM (#63454910) Journal
    The problem with remote workers leaving expensive locations for places that require far less money to live is that companies would want to capture some of those financial gains for themselves and require workers to take lower salaries. Looks like Amazon and Microsoft finally figured that out. Employers can demand a much lower rate and still get good, quality workers enthusiastic to take what Seattle engineers would consider lower pay. Who loses? Developers who remain in high cost of living cities such as Seattle and San Francisco.

    • Re:Why Pay Seattle Prices for Remote Workers? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Monday April 17, 2023 @12:36AM (#63455002)

      You suddenly care where I live? Strange, nobody gave half a fuck about my living costs when they skyrocketed because I had to move close to some office building.

      • Re:Why Pay Seattle Prices for Remote Workers? (Score:5, Informative)

        by larryjoe ( 135075 ) on Monday April 17, 2023 @01:01AM (#63455024)

        You suddenly care where I live? Strange, nobody gave half a fuck about my living costs when they skyrocketed because I had to move close to some office building.

        I guess that depends on the company. Every company I've worked for had cost of living adjustments based on work location. Moving to a higher cost area automatically bumped up pay, and moving to a lower cost area either resulted in a pay cut or at least a cut in the max pay range, i.e. affected future raises.

        This expectation of being paid high cost salaries while living in low cost areas is an anomaly invented during the pandemic. But that's the problem, that once a benefit is given, removing the benefit and reverting to the historical norm will feel harsh, even if the benefit itself was meant to be an exception during exceptional times.

        • Re:Why Pay Seattle Prices for Remote Workers? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Monday April 17, 2023 @02:31AM (#63455134)

          I don't quite understand, how does the value of my work and expertise change with the location of my body? Unless of course my body is what you're interested in, but ... sorry, I don't do that kind of work.

          • The value of your work doesn't change, however the costs do. Many are paid partly on value and partly on location based costs.

            • Like I posted before [slashdot.org], this is only because people cannot sell their workforce if selling it at the conditions presented cost more than they could earn. Move your production to a cheaper place and you can rent people at a cheaper rate. If my cost of living are lower, I can offer my workforce at more favorable rates to you.

          • It's typically seen as _JOB_ pays $X because it is worth that much to the business. But _LOCATION_ has higher than average living expenses and so if you need people to do _JOB_ while living there then it's only fair to pay them $Y. You aren't being paid $Y because you are better than the employees at their other locations, you are being paid extra to get a bum on a seat in a place that would ruin you.

      • I think you have a fair argument. But at the same time if we're going to make the argument of employment = living wage we hold consistent on that. If you move somewhere that has a lower cost of living, your living wage is less than if you were living somewhere expensive. But don't get me wrong, you are absolutely correct in that when inflation hits no employer was worried about living wage. We need unions to fix that later part and until we do fix that part, you've got a very fine strong argument that I

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Opportunist ( 166417 )

          No employer, in the history of mankind, gave a rat's ass about paying a "living wage". The only reason they were paying one was that people simply didn't come to work if their expenses to do that work exceeded the wage. Same logic as for the company, if the cost of the product exceed the potential sales price, why produce it? I get poorer and poorer with every unit I sell, and I sure won't go to work if I get poorer and poorer with every day I work.

          THAT and only that was the sole reason why companies pay a

    • Re:Why Pay Seattle Prices for Remote Workers? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by bookwormT3 ( 8067412 ) on Monday April 17, 2023 @12:44AM (#63455006)

      I see two issues here. The first is that big tech companies are only now accepting (meaning, not being grounds for termination in and of itself) that being within a half hour of the Pacific Ocean doesn't give their workers an IQ or innovation boost. They've been importing the world's best and brightest, at high cost, to concentrated (limited, resulting in expensive) areas simply based on that's what they did before. To the SF bay area because that's where Fairchild Semiconductor was located (resulting in Intel forming there), and to the Seattle area because that's where the Gates family lived so Bill put his offices there. Any of the companies could have opened secondary offices in Colorado, Texas, or half a dozen extra-podunk places, and been paying commiserate wages; remember the people were originally recruited almost exclusively from OTHER PLACES, they were moving for the job anyway. All the company had to do was put the office somewhat near some university with halfway decent computer courses and they can at least start with some of the local populace.

      Second, unless a job involves physical interaction with something, or a company's IT staff can't be trusted to keep things stable, the work-remotely issue boils down to a failure to measure someone by their productivity, and instead measure someone significantly by their ability to warm a seat. There are far too many supervisors that think taking a long time to finish an assigned task is the mark of a superior worker rather than an inferior worker. A worker that solves a problem well (ie, assuming the same level of subsequent fixes or whatever as with coworkers) in a shorter amount of time should be rewarded either by (nonproportionally, I'll accept) being given more free time or being paid more.

    • that companies would want to capture some of those financial gains for themselves

      Simple solution: PO box in Seattle (or a nearby wealthy enclave). Company doesn't have to know where I actually reside.

    • The companies can also move to where the costs are lower. Many have figured that out. More will.

  • *Lower* pay ? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mikaere ( 748605 ) on Sunday April 16, 2023 @11:25PM (#63454916)

    I thought the whole point of being a contractor was that you got a higher rate of pay.

    I am a contactor, and there is no way I would work for even the same rate as a permanent staff member (and in my country they get sick leave and minimum 4 weeks holiday, plus paid public holidays). How is this supposed to work ?

    • I'm guessing these are lower-level recruiters casting a wide net for low-level contractor positions - not equivalent to their original jobs.

    • Re:*Lower* pay ? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by khchung ( 462899 ) on Monday April 17, 2023 @01:12AM (#63455038) Journal

      How is this supposed to work ?

      Management fires a bunch of workers, then refill the positions with contractors with lower pay, then management get bonus for "cost savings".

      As long as there are enough fodders willing to come to fill the positions, who cares about anything else?

      That's how it works for management. The game will continue until either they cannot fill the positions or the team/company collapses because the contractors are too incompetent.

      • Re:*Lower* pay ? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by slashdot_commentator ( 444053 ) on Monday April 17, 2023 @02:33AM (#63455136) Journal

        That's how it works for management. The game will continue until either they cannot fill the positions or the team/company collapses because the contractors are too incompetent.

        Put aside that if the contractor was incompetent, there was no reason not to fire them (as employees) in the first place.

        This whole tech layoff thing is based on two macroeconomic trends. 1) The major tech companies were hiring during the covid era. (Most) industry tech companies were getting valued 25% higher in the stock market than they are today. 2) Its two years later, and the Fed has beaten the economy towards recession. Less people buying what they're selling, no need to retain so many employees on guestimates during the covid era.

        The thing is that there has been no shortage of potential projects to stick high-demand specialists on. The recession hasn't kicked in yet. It doesn't cost management anything at these companies to add contractors because they're cheap and short term. What might have been a project that was pushed off because of the cost estimate of employees, now become plausible because the labor is significantly cheaper.

        I don't think your death cycle will happen anytime soon, if at all. If it happens, it will be like 6-10 years in the future. More likely, the cream of these newly unemployed workers will go to other industries or 2nd tier software companies that have never been able to outbid the 1st tier for this talent. As the recession kicks in (if it does), more likely whatever can't be afforded by main street companies will be booting their low end tech workers.

        I suspect there still is a level of tech worker shortage in the overall US economy. Its just going to be harder to get the same level of pay and benefits compared to two years ago. And then it will devolve into a national supply vs demand equilibrium. Long term, there's still going to be a demographic worker shortage in the US. Tech companies, and companies that require a percentage of tech workers, will still have a smaller worker pool to outbid and I doubt that globalization will resolve the US tech worker shortage issues, unless the US is willing to patch things up, and compete for the cheaper Chinese tech worker pool.

        • I suspect there still is a level of tech worker shortage in the overall US economy. Its just going to be harder to get the same level of pay and benefits compared to two years ago. And then it will devolve into a national supply vs demand equilibrium.

          How do you get employees to accept a pay cut without asking them to take a pay cut?

          In a more perfect world, company executives might come to the individual personally and explain the options in an attempt to retain the employee, and in the grand scheme of things, retain that employee's care and respect for the company. Those folks who are forced by circumstance to accept their old jobs for less money just might be bitter and vindictive.

    • I thought the whole point of being a contractor was that you got a higher rate of pay.

      I am a contactor, and there is no way I would work for even the same rate as a permanent staff member (and in my country they get sick leave and minimum 4 weeks holiday, plus paid public holidays). How is this supposed to work ?

      It might mean that they are switching role. for example, the company has reduced the numbers of senior engineers, and is recruiting some junior coders or something.

      In some places (e.g. UK) it would be illegal to make people redundant and then rehire people for the same roles (because you make roles redundant, not people).

    • I thought the whole point of being a contractor was that you got a higher rate of pay.

      Yes, you do. An employer expecting to pay less for labor from a contracting firm is expecting horribly-underpaid foreign workers.

      An employee gets a raft of benefits and a modicum of job security. A contractor is also doing a bunch of his own administration and business work (which, for an employee is handled by others in the company's business structure) or working through a firm that takes a big cut of what the company

    • My thoughts exactly. While I tend to prefer to be a W2 Employee, I had worked with a lot of 1099 workers in the past. They got paid a lot more for the same work, however there were under contract, which meant they needed to follow the contract, and they had a deadline which then they will need to renew the contract, and have no benefits, The general cost of the contractor would normally be a W2 Salary * 1.3333 (the 1/3 is the average extra expense a company occurs hiring a W2 employee (benefits vacations

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jbengt ( 874751 )

        The general cost of the contractor would normally be a W2 Salary * 1.3333 (the 1/3 is the average extra expense a company occurs hiring a W2 employee (benefits vacations etc... )

        I think you are underestimating the expenses of a W2 employee. Based on my experience with the actual numbers in a couple of companies it should be around 2.2 times the direct salary, plus or minus, not counting profits. The company has to figure in taxes like unemployment insurance, Medicare, Social Security; benefits like healt

  • confused (Score:3)

    by bloodhawk ( 813939 ) on Sunday April 16, 2023 @11:30PM (#63454926)
    The lower pay doesn't make sense, all the IT places I am aware of pay much higher rates for contractors and yes many are hiring the same people they let go.

    • The lower pay doesn't make sense, all the IT places I am aware of pay much higher rates for contractors and yes many are hiring the same people they let go.

      That depends on what they're contracting you to do. I doubt they fired anybody who was essential to the running of the company.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Hodr ( 219920 )

      If the company hires you directly as a 1099 for the same job then sure, you're likely to make a lot more money. If instead they hire another company to temporarily fill that position then they will probably pay less because you should be a permanent employee of that company and they need to pay all the same benefits costs as the original employer while still making money on the position.

      Think of it like this.

      Job pays you $100k and has $100k overhead. They switch you to 1099 pay you $150k and now have $50k

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ranton ( 36917 )

      The lower pay doesn't make sense, all the IT places I am aware of pay much higher rates for contractors and yes many are hiring the same people they let go.

      They pay contracting companies much more, but the contractors themselves don't get the full amount. In many cases they get half. It has been a while since I was contracting, but over a decade ago I was being billed out at $140 per hour while making $125k in salary and bonuses. That is less than half if I was billed out 2000 hours per year. But I likely wasn't billed out that many hours, and the sales and marketing guys weren't billed out at all.

  • In Oz, the contractors get more than the permanents.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Entrope ( 68843 )

      In the US, a contractor usually gets paid much more than an employee per hour because the contractor must pay the employee side of payroll tax, must arrange their own health insurance, doesn't get paid leave, and otherwise has a vastly lower overhead cost.

      If the company is trying to hire contractors at a lower rate than former employees, it suggests that either somebody is trying to make a huge profit or the employees were hugely overpaid.

      • Well, that's UNLESS the "contractor" is a W2 employee of a crappy contracting firm providing bodies to BigCo.

        Said crappy firm pays little to nothing in bennies, no vacation, crap health insurance if you get any, maybe a higher hourly, but not as high as you'd command if you were a real 1099 and in an "in-demand" situation owing to your talent or market forces.

  • Brilliant opsec (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fafalone ( 633739 ) on Sunday April 16, 2023 @11:43PM (#63454950)
    Fire someone, offer to hire them back into a position for lower pay, no benefits, and with an end date... I'm sure nobody will use the access they get back to completely trash some systems or walk off with a bunch of confidential data before their job ends again.
    • yeah I suspect this is mostly bullshit or just as likely the recruiters looking to take advantage and telling them they can hire engineers through them cheaper. After all the recruiters don't give a shit, they just want their commission.

    • Yeah, like none of these companies have ever dealt with contractors before. /s

    • Unethical douchebags don't need a reason to do damage. And there's no scenario involving a compensation dispute that makes torching the fields on your way out ethical. The best you can hope is that the perpetrator is either sued into a lifetime of poverty, or arrested.

    • Fire someone, offer to hire them back into a position for lower pay, no benefits, and with an end date... I'm sure nobody will use the access they get back to completely trash some systems or walk off with a bunch of confidential data before their job ends again.

      I doubt that's what's happening. You just piss off your ex-employees even more for no good reason.

      Much more likely it's just recruiters spamming everyone with a LinkedIn profile. I haven't worked for a Big Tech company but I wonder how often they got spammed with offers to work at their own company.

  • this makes no sense. for a short gig you can forget the benefits but paying rates should be considerably higher than for a permanent position. what am i missing?

    • The money comes from a different pocket. The head count is different, and contractors are _much_ easier to replace, especially with far less trained and expensive personnel, at least in general. I and my colleagues have also contracted to kick long-term, in-house projects to the curb and replace them with something lighter, faster, and cheaper and train personnnel to maintain it, kicking aside long-invested internal "architects" who spent years making themselves indispensable.

      Contracting the two competent p

    • You're not getting how huge corporations work. They want to complete project c, it requires x amount of bodies, at y level of talent. They want to provide support for a product or service, they do the same thing. Because of covid, they wildly overestimated how many employees they needed, were thrown a boatload of covid relief money, and then they had to compete for a limited qualified worker pool, so they had to throw money at these employees. Post covid, there's an impending recession, these huge compa

  • As a contractor, you set your own hours, and you dictate your own fees.

    Sure - I'll take my old job back as a contractor. At twice my former rate.

    • Traditionally, yes. As a contractor you charge higher rates, not lower... because the job has no security and no benefits and you're self-funding to cover those areas.

      No good will come from allowing this to happen. A few rich people will get richer, and a whole lot of middle class people get poorer and more stressed to make that happen.

  • Totally planned (Score:4, Insightful)

    by locater16 ( 2326718 ) on Monday April 17, 2023 @12:59AM (#63455022)
    Fire people because panicked investors insist you've overhired people. Then when you're missing people to do work hire them back at a discount! See if everyone does it at the same time... there won't be, any extra engineers to hire. So... uhm. Listen the stock went up 2 points and tee time is at 3, that's all I care about.

  • This is a price sensitivity survey with extra steps.

    If a portion (1%) return under these contracts, that indicates there's obviously some on the books that are overpaid, so there'll be more firings to rehire at reduced rate.

    Isn't this what happens when a monopoly kills off competition? There's lots of talent in the market, about time play.com and the likes get revived.

  • If they want you as a contractor - that's fine. But make them pay a big fat premium for it.

  • And managers say nobody wants to work lol (Score:3)

    by GrumpySteen ( 1250194 ) on Monday April 17, 2023 @07:48AM (#63455628)

    "I laid everyone off and tried get them to come back as temporary contractors for half the pay and no benefits.
      I can't believe those lazy bastards didn't jump at the opportunity to work again!"

    We've reached the point where people with full time jobs can't afford rent, food, medicine, taking time off when they're sick and so many other things. Capitalism and the stock market, however, demand that corporations increase their profits quarter after quarter, year after year leaving less and less for the workers.

    Fuck capitalism and our bought-and-paid-for government officials who enable this shit.

  • I had recruiters trying to recruit me for the empty cubicle across from me trying to be sly not telling me the company on the JD until I guess it. lol.

  • Their level of incompetence is astounding, and their carpet-bombing approach to contacting people makes them no better than spammers.

  • A role with no holidays, vacation or benefits imples a 1099 contractor. That typically pays 2-3X the hourly rate of a salaried employee. Im more than happy to go back at 2X my salaried rate and Ill stay right up until I get a better offer and make sure I give notice on my billing date.

  • Years ago, at an IBM in a sunshine state, far, far away, IBM laid off a whole bunch of software developers with a 2 year severance package. The following week, those same developers were hired back as contractors.

  • The corporations and elites would love nothing better than to implement a world-wide gig economy. I can't say for sure that they planned for or even foresaw this development. But I'm pretty certain that now it's happening, they'll do everything they can to boost its momentum and make it the norm.

    I often wonder how soon a revolution against the corporate world order will be attempted. Sadly, with the ubiquitous surveillance and lack of privacy we now live under, I fear any attempts at such a revolution will

  • In this state a company can't rehire any laid off position with anyone other than the person they just laid off (within a certain time period). Not that this helps these workers, but it's probably something Washington State should consider.

  • In the 1990s, when the old telecom industry was imploding and mass layoffs were almost a weekly occurrence, there were laid-off employees who didn't even bother cleaning out their desks. Their last day as an employee was a Friday, and they were back the next Monday, doing their old job, just with a different color badge.

    This was so rampant when Carly Fiorina was systematically dismantling Lucent, that when she took over Hewlett-Packard and forced their first mass layoff ever, the rule was that laid-off empl

  • I worked for 10 years as a contractor for the US gov, civilian sector. I *know*, because I looked it up, that had I been a fed, I would have earned around the same salary. We weren't "granted" stock options, we could put our own money (but only into company stock).

    Oh... and, of course, YOU PAID a *lot* more than you would have in tax dollars, because YOU were paying my salary... and for a fed to administer the contract, and for my corporate manager's salary, and *her* boss' salary, and for the company to ma

  • Twenty years ago this would happen the other way around. A highly skilled IT worker would "retire" at an early age from their salaried job and then come back to do the same job as a contractor. Companies paid more to contractors back then because they were saving on benefits and it hit their books differently. The workers would also be collecting their pension or 401k, so some made quite a bit of dough doing this. I was always jealous I wasn't of retirement age yet.

  • Contracting is perfectly fine (Score:3)

    by thsths ( 31372 ) on Monday April 17, 2023 @01:39PM (#63456726)

    No job security, no benefits, getting your own IT equipment etc.

    But the contracting rate needs to be at least twice your salary.

  • I've been asked the same thing! (Score:3)

    by Murdoch5 ( 1563847 ) on Monday April 17, 2023 @05:01PM (#63457286) Homepage
    Years ago, someone lets me go for BS reasons, only to find out a month or so later they couldn't replace me as easily as they thought. I had been working on a large platform that registered, tracked, and maintained N different projects (over 15). On my own, without help, had built the backend, frontends (GTK, C#, CLI and a WUI (Web User Interface)), the DB including configurations, and done the IT work of setting up the servers. I had deployed this solution internally, wrote exceptional documentation, and was then fired. The reason at the time was cash flow, but that was BS, it was really because I had asked for a raise, better title, and more flexible working conditions.

    About 1 month later I got a call from the director of engineering, Alek, and he asked me to come in and walk him through the project, setup, and some details. Alek was a really nice guy, so I agreed, and spent ~2 hours going over everything, explaining the setup, design, documentation and doing a deep dive. I even left him with a whiteboard that broke the project down, showing communication flow, interconnections, IPC, components, libraries, and other details. He thanked me, we shook hands and I left, thinking that was everything.

    About 1 week later, I got a call from the owner, he asked me if I would be willing to provide contract support, and development for the platform. I liked him well enough and said sure, but, on the condition my hourly would be much higher, I think 4x. He rejected that offer on the spot and offered me ~25 / hour, using the logic I was salaried in at 45k, and I shouldn't expect more payment for the same work. I told him without hesitation: “Why did you let me go then? You can't shoot me in the foot, then demand I thank you getting the opportunity”.

    He hung up the phone and I didn't hear back from him for months. Months later my phone rings, and it's the owner, he asks me to reconsider the offer, but wants to fix my hourly, I think at that point to ~45. I respectfully decline sighting you'd have to hire 1 backend guy, 1 frontend guy, 1 IT guy, and possible more help, and that ~45 / hours wasn't enough money. He flat out tells me that the platform broke because they tried to have a jr dev write part of it, and now can't get it working. It wasn't working, so they couldn't serialize a bunch of waiting products and were about to have a contract blow up in their face. I said: "Write me a cheque for $3500, and I will fix the platform, document what you broke and how, and give you 2 hours of additional service at a later time.”, I was called unreasonable, and go hung up. That was ~8 years ago, that company folded ~5 years ago.

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