Re: Difficulty Finding Python Developers

From: Paul Rubin (//phr.cx_at_NOSPAM.invalid)
Date: 04/20/04 

Date: 20 Apr 2004 12:09:09 -0700

"Mike C. Fletcher" <mcfletch@rogers.com> writes:
> > You probably already realized this, but that should've been $45 to
> > $55 per hour.
>
> *I* didn't realise that, I assumed $45,000/year to $55,000/year annual
> rate, which would be a reasonable rate in Canada (in Canadian dollars
> even) for a programmer with 1 or 2 years of experience. I'd forgotten
> just how well Americans get paid for having fun... but at least our
> taxes are higher :) .

If you're a contractor, you get no employee benefits like health
insurance, no paid vacation or paid time off if you get sick, and no
expectation of having a steady job (the job is just for 3 months and
then you expect to be looking for work again). Plus you pay more
taxes (there's a FICA tax of about 14% that you and your employer each
pay 50% of if you're an employee, but you pay 100% of it if you're a
contractor), plus you have to file tax returns every 3 months instead
of once a year. Because of all that, it's normal for the hourly rate
for contract programmers to be about 2x the equivalent hourly rate for
staff programmers, i.e. a $50/hour 3-month contract job is equivalent
to about a $50k/year staff job. In the current economy where there's
lots of unemployment, contract work is quite hard to find (contractors
are usually the first to get chopped when a company needs to cut
expenses, since it's much easier to just not renew a contract than to
actually lay off an employee), so the contracting market is worse than
usual, which means that $50/hour is pretty good, especially for an
area like Atlanta, which has lower expenses (and lower wages) than an
area like Silicon Valley.

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