Читать книгу How to Find Work in the 21st Century - Ron McGowan - Страница 23

As noted earlier, one of the most ironic perceptions about working as a contractor is that if you choose to go in this direction, you are cutting yourself off from the possibility of finding a permanent job. Nothing could be further from the truth. By being active as a contractor, you’re adding to your experience and expanding your network of contacts. You’ll feel better about yourself since you’re actively employed as opposed to sitting on the sidelines waiting for a permanent job to come up, and if one does come up, you can take it.

The basis for this attitude is psychological: If you have earned your living for years by being employed in one or more permanent jobs and that’s how your parents and grandparents earned their living, it’s a challenge to accept the fact that you can earn a living as a contractor, given the unpredictability of such work versus a permanent job. If you’ve lived with the security of a paycheck being deposited to your bank account every two weeks throughout your career, it’s not easy to make the adjustment to contracting, where your earnings are far less predictable. Some people are so addicted to this stable way of living they have difficulty accepting the fact that you can earn a living any other way.

There tends to be a generation gap on this issue too. Younger people who are entering the workforce are more likely to adapt to contracting than their parents are. Since they haven’t had the experience of years of getting a steady paycheck, they adapt more readily. They’re also less likely to be carrying around the emotional baggage that their parents are as they try to adjust to the significant changes that are taking place in the workplace.

It would be wrong to assume, however, that young people are not challenged by the prospect of earning their living as contractors. They are influenced by their parents’ attitudes and society’s addiction to jobs as the only way to earn a living. Our education system doesn’t prepare them well for the entrepreneurial option. They may also want the material benefits that come from having a permanent job: a house, a nice car, and a comfortable lifestyle.

Because the concept of earning a living from a permanent job is still very much a part of the fabric of the society we live in, contracting tends to be seen as an inferior way to make a living. The fact is that some contractors are much better off than their counterparts who still have permanent jobs. They’re earning more and keeping more of what they earn because of the tax advantages that go with contracting. They control when they go on vacation and how often they do it. They have much more freedom in how they work. They’re not locked into a nine-to-five, Monday-to-Friday work schedule, and they’re more likely to work from home and spend less time commuting, which can be a major stress factor for people who live in cities. While it’s true that some contractors, especially those who are new to it, are struggling, many others love what they do and would never go back to the lifestyle imposed by a permanent job.

Working as a contractor is rightfully seen as a form of owning your own business, and that’s what scares and makes some people uncomfortable with it. Not everyone sees themselves as an entrepreneur, even though most of our ancestors were self-employed before the modern concept of a job came along. But contracting is a more flexible form of earning a living that can offer the option of switching to a permanent job if one comes up, or staying with contracting if that is your preference. It’s not a life sentence. Even if you currently choose contracting because you love it, you can always change your mind in the future.

According to a 2005 report from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, Ireland is one of the leading countries in Europe in terms of entrepreneurship. Almost 70 percent of the population considers it to be a good career choice. A January 17, 2008 article in The New York Times notes that Ireland ranks third in the European Union in early-stage entrepreneurial activity.

Europe’s labour market is considered overly rigid, and the countries with the most rigid “job protection” rules also have the highest levels of unemployment. This is the opinion of Ann Mettler, executive director of the Lisbon Council, which is committed to raising European competitiveness.

In recent years, France has been losing many of its young entrepreneurs because of its cultural attitude towards capitalism. A March 11, 2008, article in The New York Times points out that an estimated half a million French entrepreneurs, most of them under 35, have left France and moved to the south of England to start up their own businesses. However, things are changing. A February 8, 2010 report from BBC News stated that in 2009 the European country with the highest number of new businesses was France, due in part to the ease of starting a new business, a recent change and vastly different from how it used to be. It stated that, at the beginning of the twentieth century, France had more small businesses than the United Kingdom and that they were once again becoming more entrepreneurial; in fact, they gave us the word entrepreneur.