Getting a secure, permanent and pensionable job is the traditional goal of everyone entering the labour market. The attractions of a dependable salary, pension entitlements and the chance of promotion within one company are a magnet for many. But not for everyone.
The strong economic growth of recent years has persuaded people in some sectors that a permanent, pensionable job equals less money, fewer skills and personal stagnation. While trade unionists and Government agencies examine the downside of increasing contract employment in the economy, sectors like information technology (IT) and software are embracing the concept as a new culture of work, which can reward both employees and employers handsomely.
According to Partnership 2000, the Republic, like other European states is experiencing significant growth in contract employment. It says the "legal, institutional and social frameworks of the labour market" will have to be adapted to take account of what it calls "atypical workers".
This development is currently being discussed between the social partners as part of the Partnership 2000 process. While the focus of debate on the issue has typically been about those who want permanent, pensionable jobs, but cannot get them, a new phenomenon is now emerging. An increasing number of people most of them young, skilled IT professionals who could walk into permanent jobs are instead opting to work on contract.
Mr Brian Barrett (26), a computing graduate of the University of Ulster, decided to leave a full-time, permanent, pensionable job with a software firm in Co Tyrone recently because, he says, he was "stuck in a rut". Despite his experience of the computer language, Visual Basic, he made a "paltry" salary of £16,000 a year.
But since coming to Dublin and registering with the technology recruitment agency, CPL Solutions, he has taken a fixed-term "supply contract" with a financial institution in Dublin and says he has doubled his salary. He is not an employee of the firm, but is contracted to work on a specific project.
CPL, which places IT professionals on contracts with a variety of companies, claims more than 25 per cent of those in the sector - around 2,000 people - are self-employed contractors. Up to 60 per cent of these are on first-time contracts.
On Wednesday, CPL held a conference on the subject in Dublin attended by hundreds of IT professionals interested in becoming self-employed contractors. The agency claims people in the IT industry are better off setting themselves up as sole traders than taking a full-time pensionable job.
The theory behind the growing phenomena of contract working is simple.
When an employer does not have to make a long-term commitment to an employee involving paying pension contribution, sick pay, PRSI and other contributions he or she is more prepared to pay higher rates.
The business development director of CPL Solutions, Mr Paul Carroll, says the skill shortages in the IT industry mean contract workers can command large salaries. He says salaries of between £800 and £1,000 a week are normal for programmers with experience of Legacy and AS400 Cobol systems.
Another IT professional told The Irish Times that he was about to leave his job as a full-time programmer, where he earns £23,000 a year. He says he has become aware of a contract requiring the same skills which will pay him £800 a week starting and this will rise to £1,000 after a month.
"I am beginning to realise that while I am losing out on a pension and illness cover, the overall gain in salary far outweighs this," he says.
Mr Carroll says employers are much happier to bring in a skilled person on a specific project for a fixed term, than have to take someone on permanently. He says this should not be viewed negatively, but as a plus for those who are skilled.
According to Mr Carroll, the total value of most employees' benefits packages (pension, illness cover, redundancy) is 10 per cent on top of their annual salary.
"If you can earn more than this as a self-employed contractor, then it makes a lot of sense," he says.
Such is the money to be earned by those most in demand such as programmers with the skills necessary to work on year 2000 projects that it is now common for some contract workers to work out a contract term and then take a few months holiday, before returning to look for further work.
One consideration for someone deciding to become self-employed for tax purposes, is that they will probably have to hire an accountant to do their books and will have to pay for their own pension and illness cover.
The attractive elements of contract working recede when they are applied to sectors with more modest rates of pay.
Mr John Kane of SIPTU, who has dealt with contract workers in other industries, says contract working in low-pay jobs is not an option, as people in those jobs are unable to pay for their own pension scheme or fund their own life cover.
As Ms Patricia O'Donovan of ICTU points out, such arrangements only work when there are plenty of jobs and people can be sure that when one contract ends another will come along soon.
From the employers point of view the attraction can come in greater flexibility in their workforce, according to Ms Caroline Jenkinson of IBEC .
Moving between different companies on a contract basis strengthens the skills portfolio of the person involved, says Mr Carroll. He compares this against a full-time job in one company, where an employee simply uses the same skills in the same way.
But what about the employee who wants to establish roots in a firm and find himself in a management role at a later stage? "Well that option is open to them, despite popular perception a contractor's vast experience of different workplaces and different roles is ideal for management, if that is what they want."
Mr Carroll says contract work is a whole new way of looking at work and the traditional hierarchies behind it. "Normally when people talk about work, they talk about going up the ladder by means of promotion, but in the model created by contractors, moving upward is done by increasing your skill level."
