Whats the typical pay difference when going from contract to perm?
For me any pay difference was pretty much eaten away by going from an hourly person getting overtime to a salaried person that worked more hours but w/o overtime. My company also had profit sharing, things like stock grants and options, lots more vacation and holiday, 401k matching, and a ton of other stuff that made it worthwhile. In the companies I went from contract to perm for, you were also a little less likely to get laid off.
It depends on the length of the contract position (shorter term = higher temporary rates). A one-week contract could easily pay four or five times the same rate as a full-time position. The longer the contract, the closer (less lucrative) to a full-time permanent salary it gets. Comparing multi-year contract work to full-time permanent employment, I’ve still seen a difference much as half in creative fields (design, photography). In tech fields it seems to be less different, more like 25%. Insurance, vacation pay, taxes and most of all job security are the advantages. They usually make it worthwhile, but in your case (if you have free insurance), they may not. One of the advantages of a contract is supposed to be higher pay, after all.
Are you a 1099 contractor (you pay both halves of FICA, pay estimated taxes quarterly) or a W2 employee of a contracting agency (submit timesheets to a contracting agency, but do work for their client)? This makes a difference in evaluating the pay. If you are a 1099, you might think of your hourly rate as 1.5 * ( ( full-time annual salary ) / 2000). I’ve seen this elsewhere here on AskMe, but can’t find a link. I thought it was a good rule-of-thumb. So, let’s say your hourly rate is $60/hour. That would make a comparable salary of $80,000. If you are a W2 employee of a contracting agency, then this is an apples-to-apples switch. If you receive from your contracting agency $35/hour and no benefits except that they pay half your FICA and withhold your taxes, then the switch to salary would be $35 * 2000 (assuming a 2-week vacation), or $70,000. You are moving from one employee situation to another — if your current employer (the contracting agency) does not offer any benefits, well tha
