Recession rates

[Aaron Trevena]

2009/3/10 Paul Makepeace <paulm at paulm.com>:
> Has anyone found the recession/depression affecting contracting rates?

A bit, yes, although *touch wood* there does seem to be a slight
increase in the availability of telework and part onsite jobs and
contracts - whether this is a case of businesses finally catching up
with the technology and cultural changes, or just a case of adding
non-monetary incentives, I can't be sure - otoh, it *should* be
cheaper in theory to have telecommuters than people working onsite if
you have decent communications.

> I was surprised to have a recruiter recently suggest a bunch of candidates
> for £375/day (each :-)).
> This seems on the high side, even outside of the economic blues.

I suppose - it depends what it's for.

I'd want a decent premium on any short term contract (i.e. less than 3
months), or if it was an especially demanding job - whether through
long hours, demanding management or high pressure / responsability.

> I guess what also tweaked me was that every single one of these guys was
> going for the exact same rate whereas without a doubt they are not all
> equally skilled. While I don't expect we have accurate programmer pricing
> models the obvious inefficiency of this market mildly irritated me...

Probably what the recruiter specified in the ads or happened to pluck
from the air when talking to them.

I wouldn't expect 3 different contractors to give me the same rate
unless they were clones or I specified a low ceiling in the
advertisement.

A.

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