jgombos

The sweet spot for IT work right now is contracting in the US. Contractors effectively make double what direct employees make when you account for the per diem benefit.

I've heard that it's quite the opposite in Western Europe. I heard contractors there make less than direct employees, there's no per diem and they lose job security on top of it. So there is no benefit to contracting there. Supposedly it's just table scraps for desperate IT workers. Is all that true?

Are there any countries where contracting is as favorable as it is in the US? I'd like to get out of the US, but I don't want to leave behind contract work.

Bob

Try the Far East....wouldn't know about IT, but engineers get good contract work in Japan, well an uncle, but he's fairly specialised.

jgombos

Thanks for the tip. Contracting aside, I researched cost of living an salary surveys for 50 or so countries a while back, and found Japan to be the most favorable for software engineers.

BTW- I tend to get mixed up in the lingo.. I don't know whether a software engineer is considered an "IT consultant/analyst/whatever" or an "engineer". To be specific, my background is in software development, primarily UML modeling and ADA programming.

snowbunny

A curious mix of new and old....

where are you working that you're still getting double? Most of the US contractors have had to face cuts that have them earning only slightly more or the same as "regular" employees, with none of the benefits, of which health insurance is extremely important.

jgombos

I guess I don't buy into the idea that ADA is old. It's old in the sense that it's mature, but will have a future as long as there's still a need for safety critical embedded software. Ada 2005 is on its way.
I'm an aerospace subcontractor. It could be that my previous pay was so lousy that it worked out that way. I will say that I previously worked for Honeywell, and found it to be the lousiest, corrupt, management top-heavy, and undoubtedly it has a rock-bottom low in employee morale. I dropped the Honeywell direct slave shop like a ton of bricks, and took a contract for one of Honeywell's competitors. My pay rate doubled, actually without accounting for the per diem tax break (and to sweeten the change more, it's a non-hostile work environment). The optional catastrophic HMO group plan takes a small slice of the paycheck, but well worth it.

snowbunny

Nowt against *old* -- I love Unix.

Anything defcon might pay well enough to support contractors' wages that high, but the same is no longer true of most of the industry, IME.

Bob

Well my uncle specialises in springs, heavy duty springs used to counter earthquakes in buildings....but anyway, software, yeah, bit market, but a lot of it is being outsourced to India, they don't like China very much...
Though there's big money in the puter games programming out there, and also automotive, Honda, Mazda etc for the engines, and also the electronic industry, especially Sony, Panasonic, Mitsubishi...if your into the aero, check mitsubishi out, I think they still make planes? can't remember if they flogged that off or not.
But Japan is bloomin' expensive country to live in, great and cheap electronics etc, but everyday consumerables like groceries are well expensive, especially in the big cities, Tokyo, Kyoto....but up north, can't remember the city, but right up top in the beer/whisky country, there's a large energy research lab.

ginaf

Sorry if I am resurrecting an old thread.

My husband contracts in London and the rates there are really good, double what a salary would pay. We are off to Australia (Sydney) and by talking to friends who work in exactly the same area and agents we can expect the same.