Re: [tlug] [OT] A Question About Degrees

[Fredric Fredricson <Fredric.Fredricson@example.com>]

On 07/20/2010 07:13 AM, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
> Fredric Fredricson writes:
>   >  On 07/16/2010 07:08 AM, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
>   >  >  In the U.S. and to some extent in Japan, there are options such as
>   >  >  contract work.  Much less job security, less to no fringe benefits,
>   >  >  but the direct compensation is comparable (and sometimes substantially
>   >  >  higher), and you get experience relevant to permanent positions in
>   >  >  your field.
>   >  Why do you assume that there are no contract workers in Europe?
>
> I don't assume that there are *none*.  After all, it is a market
> economy, and demand will seek out supply.
>
> Just that my understanding (from people who should know, ie, labor
> economists at the U. of Madrid and U. of Barcelona, INSEAD and U. of
> Toulouse, Cambridge U.) is that there is much less flexibility in
> regard to the fixed costs of hiring in Europe than there is in the
> U.S. and Japan.  My understanding is that if you hire someone on the
> books, you have to pay their social insurance contributions etc.,
> there are constraints on hours of work, vacations, etc, that make
> contract workers in general hardly less expensive than regular workers
> of comparable job description and qualification.
It is certainly true for some countries but not for others. The laws
and regulations governing employments differ substantially between
countries in Europe.
Where I live you can hire contract workers without paying insurances,
taxes etc. Still, somebody have to pay them (i.e. the contract worker
himself) so the contract worker is usually more expensive than a
regular employee.

Why hire contract workers at all then? Well, because they are much
more flexible and you can "fire" then whenever you want to, something
you cannot do with regular employees in Sweden (the details are
complicated).
In other countries (like our neighbor Denmark) you can hire/fire
employees pretty much at will so the arguments for using contract
workers and use of contract workers differ, I guess.

/Fredric

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