[humanwhosits]

I guess hiring for contracts routes around arbitrary headcount limits.

[nickstinemates]

Not really arbitrary. Headcount are typically approved in tranches, budget is a lot more fluid. Headcount is also part of long term forecasting whereas again contractors are just a budget item.

"A $100k engineer costs $150k per year all in" vs. "We need to spend $150k to get X done"

[crackercrews]

Also lets you trim headcount without announcing layoffs, down the line.

[no_wizard]

I think it has more to do with getting around benefits, usually.

The expense for businesses isn't just the salary, in fact alot of businesses, if they could just pay the salary, would be able to retain / hire more people, but benefits + high salary is harder to take on.

This is a great argument for universal healthcare and a nationalized pension system, but I digress

[abeyer]

But you just pay _more_ for the contractors, at least if you hire locally. In my experience contract rates for comparable work any place you'd want to work are typically marked up (at least) enough to roughly compensate for the difference in benefits and taxes.

Especially now that remote for FTEs has become so common, there wouldn't be much motivation to take long term contracts otherwise. That may change if the job market goes pear-shaped, but doesn't seem like we're there yet.

[CydeWeys]

Tech workers are so highly compensated anyway that benefits aren't a huge percentage of the total cost of employment. The main reasons to prefer contractors in times of economic difficulty are: (a) contracts are fixed length, so it's easy to simply let a contract lapse rather than renewing it if conditions worsen/don't improve and you want to cut headcount without having a layoff, and (b) contractors frequently count differently on a balance sheet (as operating expense vs employee expense).