----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gerhard Fiedler" <lists@connectionbrazil.com>
Subject: Re: [OT]: Hiring a PIC consultant/developer


> That's probably because in Europe, employees have more legal benefits.

As Vitaliy pointed out, the rules aren't all that clear in the U.S., either.
And while there are a few obvious benefits that European employees get that
are lacking in the U.S., we have a government that is amazingly effective at
creating bureaucratic overhead, so I suspect the costs to the employer are
pretty similar.

There is also a pretty big difference in the U.S. from state to state, and
the state rules are often pretty arcane.  Frequently they fall pretty hard
on medium sized businesses.  In some states, an employee can cost 5 times
his salary for some businesses.  Some of this is taxes, but a surprising
amount of the cost is just paperwork.  This makes for a pretty strong
incentive to use contractors.

> However, I know many software "consultants" in the USA that are nothing
> more than temporary employees, measured by the IRS standards. This
possibly
> may have changed recently a bit, with the wave of cheap outsourcing to

It is still pretty common, especially in the software space.  It kind of is
a bad deal.  Most likely you can get away with a lot.  But if you get
caught, it gets REALLY expensive.

--McD


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