The Difference Between Contract, Part-Time and Full-Time Workers

We believe everyone should be able to make financial decisions with confidence. Hopefully, by clearly defining and determining your wants and needs, you’ll be able to choose the preferred career path more easily. Depending on the type of work you do and the skill set you possess, you’ll be able to choose between the two employment options – for the most part. While contract work may yield higher wages, it doesn’t promise consistent work and thus doesn’t promise fixed income. What this means is that while your finances may be excellent at one point, you may find yourself struggling financially at the other. So, if financial stability is extremely important to you, full-time employment may be a better option.

• Many factors influence that balancing act, like your compensation strategy, workplace culture, or rewards and recognition strategies.
• The chances are that you’ll be able to gain far greater insights into both full-time and contract work advantages and disadvantages if you listen to other people’s first-hand experiences.
• Some states may require employers to provide sick leave, paid time off, short-term disability or health insurance to their part-time workers.
• A contract position fills holes in a client’s workforce, and is an increasingly popular element of staffing management plans for employers.
• Contract-to-hire employees prove themselves long before you have to make a long-term commitment.
• In that case, a quick-and-dirty rule of thumb is you should add 50% to a W-2 wage to find its comparable 1099 wage.

You have to remember that salary is not the only benefit in a full-time job. These are my observation and my experience as I traversed through these three different employment types within my professional life. Again, I feel lucky to have the opportunity to experience all of the pros and cons of all three and to learn something about myself and about the job in every client that I work for. I have accumulated a lot of contacts, co-workers who have become long-time friends throughout the journey.

Contract vs. Full-Time: The Legal Framework

contract position vs full timeing your career options can help insulate you from the resulting financial duress if a startup flops, or if you find yourself laid off or in between jobs. Pursuing a single, long-term employment position was for many the only way to leverage all the benefits that came with full-time employment. Also, by choosing which projects you accept and which companies you work for, you can gain a wide range of experience across different industries or opt to cultivate one specific niche within your chosen field. Proven salary negotiation strategies and tactics for Senior Software Engineers and Engineering Managers negotiate the best possible compensation and get paid what they’re worth. In the example above, Joe needed to compare a contractor role paying $80k to a full-time role paying something like $55k. There are two main things you can do to make it easier to compare a contractor position to a full-time one.

Another option for IT professionals is regular, full-time, benefits eligible employment. This means an employee is hired by a company to work for a minimum number of hours per week at a set rate. Full-time employees earn a steady income and are provided benefits like health insurance, sick leave and retirement savings through their employer.

Advantages of Being a Full-time Employee

A contract position fills holes in a client’s workforce, and is an increasingly popular element of staffing management plans for employers. Usually, a contract worker does work for a company and is legally employed by a staffing agency or employer of record partner. The employee works at your client’s business, but you or a third party are the employer of record. One of the biggest differences between independent contractors and full-time W2 employees is who pays for all the supplies. For the W2 employee, the business either directly pays for or reimburses the employee for all supplies needed to complete the job efficiently.

Some feel bogged down in their current work and need a change of scenery. Some candidates want to check out new professional opportunities without committing full time. Though they sound similar, an employee working on a contract basis is different from an independent contractor. Independent contractors are self-employed, meaning they must pay both the employer and employee portions of payroll taxes.

Cautions of Contract Work

Contractors typically invest heavily in the tools they need to conduct their business. Employees rely on employers to foot the bill for their workstations, equipment, etc. Freelancers and contractors have a higher exposure to profit/loss than employees. Employers usually determine the sequence/order of tasks to be completed by employees. If you run a local business that serves a local market, this can be crucial to your success.

However, by classifying a person as a contract worker, the company is not responsible for recognizing those liabilities on their books. The U.S. Department of Labor considers intentional misclassification of employees a serious infraction. Department of Labor and other governmental agencies are designed to minimize and punish misclassification of employees. Classifying a person as a contract worker has substantial tax benefits over declaring them as a common law employee. Companies are not responsible for withholding and paying employment taxes for contract workers, which reduces their payroll tax liability and expenses.

You are the master of your own fate and the director of your own life. Andrea got to test the waters before jumping straight in with a full-time position. John got to see how well Andrea performed before fully committing to a full-time hire.