hello,

i'm living in zurich with perm job and was offered a contract in basel - do you know how different rates i will pay? (i have EU b permit)

can i just fill in my future income in comparis.ch under withholding tax and expect to earn this minus social contributions of course, or does contracting means different type of taxes? ( i've never worked as a contractor )

regards

Only difference between a contract and a perm role in taxes is the agency offering you the job will likely deduct both employer and employees AVS I think it is from you.

stupid question, but is it normal to pay for public holidays or when someone is sick?

Have a look at this form - it will depend on what agency you work for but it will give you an idea of the amount that will be deducted from your salary.

http://www.accurity.ch/revenueestimate/

Its a lot more than just tax and the usual social security deductions. But on the other hand, as a contractor you usually get a certain amount tax free (for expenses claimed) which makes up for some of the extra deductions.

Regarding holiday and sick pay - I've had 2 situations:

One - you don't get any holiday or sick pay. Unless you are sick long term and then some kind of insurance kicks in.....

Two - your agency will deduct holiday pay from your hourly (or daily) rate and you can claim it back when you take holiday. Sick pay works the same as above.

But essentially either way, its coming out of your pocket if you take time off.

Read your contract; suspect No, you will not be paid if you dont work; so holidays, moving, sickness, death, marriage, birth etc no work, no pay.

You may find yourself under more pressure to report hours worked too; assuming they are offering to pay you by the hour; dont accept a contract that suggests they will pay per day; and report hours worked... read between the lines, they charge for overtime and dont pay you.

Why are you even thinking of leaving a FTJ for a contract? The money is surely not that good!

I'm just leaving a contract for a FTJ and I'm nearly halving my salary....so yes, the money IS that good. But as a contractor you often put your career progression on hold, and I've done that for 2 years which is enough for me.

I've had 2 seperate contracts with 2 agencies now and both offered maternity pay for a number of months (6 I think, off the top of my head), and long term sick pay as I said before, is covered by an insurance which you pay out of your salary. They also cover military service, if that applies....in fact, both contracts I've had have had very good benefits attached.

Why not accept a contract that pays by the day? I agree, if they ignore overtime hours, then don't accept it, but if as my current one does, they use a 'flex-time' system which allows you to take overtime as holiday, then theres nothing wrong with being paid by the day.

The contract will tell the OP whether you get paid holidays or sick pay. As another poster mentioned above, if they do it will be because the agency have deducted it from you in the first place. I suspect yes, but only because it's in my contract...
Request a payment breakdown from the agency and that will tell you for definite.

Why on earth would you not accept a contract on a daily rate? Above a certain level of responsibility and earnings most contractors aren't clockwatchers.

well, now i have 100k + 10% bonus and other company offered me 85 chf / hour . That's much more for me, although i will probably also have to pay a lot higher taxes if i move from Zurich to Basel-Stadt.

I was told few times by my collegues that i'm slighty underpaid (10+ years of experience as unix/linux admin should give something around 120k) , but money is not everything so i didn't care that much... But now when the company situation changes, and i'm loosing job security anyway, why not do the contracting? perm job without job security doesn't make much sense i would say and our department might be outsourced soon.

i will of course read the contract IF i will get an offer at all, i'm just curious how it might look and what is the standard - that's why i ask in advance. I never did any contracting

Outside of salary issues....

I have noticed as a contractor you are sometimes treated as a bit of an 'outsider' in a team. This can be kept to a minimum if you make an effort to get involved (sometimes beyond the requirements of the contract) and don't act like a 'contractor' (eg. clock watching, penny counting, clocking in and out bang on your 8 hours). But to a certain degree it inevitable to feel bit left out when your development is not invested in and to the company you are just a number on a spreadsheet.

It also obviously depends on the company. If you're in a group with lots of other contractors, then you won't feel so different. If everyone else is perm and you are the only contractor, you might be looked 'down' on a bit.

Sorry to monopolize this thread.....just having gone through the opposite decision recently I can see where you're coming from.

I have a rather complicated spreadsheet I used to work out the difference between contractor and perm salaries, and taking into account 25 days holiday and 10 days sick (assumed) per year, as well as all employer and employee deductions as a contractor, and your bonus as a perm, you come out no better at all on 85CHF per hour compared to your previous salary. I'd push for a higher rate if you want to make the change and have it be worthwhile.

Dont under estimate the career on hold bit; it will come back to bite you; it has me...

Yep, I agree. Two years on and I'm starting back perm on the same level I left on 2 years ago, possibly even a bit lower. But in the meantime I have put away a nice little nest egg, and I have gained experience that has allowed me to move onto a new career path.

Plus, it allowed me to move to this lovely land!

agency claims that 85 chf in this situation is 77 chf after social contributions. That's quite ok i guess, 10% ? as a perm now i pay ~11%-12% , so if it's true, social contributions are not bigger, even slighty smaller.

as to feeling as outsider in a team, i don't think i mind that.

and as to career progression i thought quite the opposite - that contracting gives a boost to your career... of course, you are doing something you are already good at, but still, you can make it even better, no?

one more thing that is against contracting though - 25 days + 10 days sickness that you mentioned + public holidays i suppose?

it's then more like 40-45 days less, right?

Having spend 17 years contacting here before I switched to a full time position I can assure you that CHF85 / hour is a long way short of 110K, it's more like 80K - 90K plus nothing!!!!

In addition to the salary you quoted you need to take in account the employer's pension contribution, paid holidays and sick leave, training costs, accident insurance, loss of income insurance and so on.....

A lot of "old times" like myself have got out of the contract business over the past 5 years because it is no longer interesting. I estimated my break even point to be around CHF115 / hour for comparison to full time positions....

Good luck with that,

Jim

Since we don't have all the details of the contract it is hard to say, but it does not sound right to me - I would be expecting something more like a 20% deduction to cover both employer's social security and pension contributions as well as employee contributions as well....

You will need to keep up your skills and learn new things on your own - no employer paid training or time to learn on the job.... No matter what skill set you have its market value will run out after a few years and since contractors are hired for their current skills and experience, it can often be hard to make the jump to the new skills set... in fact what often happens is that contractors are hired to look after the old stuff while the employees jump on to the new stuff, pushing you even farther behind...

Don't get me wrong, contracting was great in the old days when rates were high and there was little competition, but these days it's a very different situation so make sure you know what you are getting into before you make the move....

Jim

85 / hr is not much to leave a permie job of 100k + 10% bonus.. in the end you would gain about 10-15% more money and loose job security

Yeah. Who wants to work more than 6 hours a day?

Why would a contractor want to be part of the company? With one of my clients, I've been offered a permie role twice, and turned it down. Sometimes I'm invited to dept parties. Sometimes not. I'm always grateful when I am, but certainly don't expect to be. I'm NOT part and parcel of the organisation. If I wanted to be, I'd take the permie job.

And why expect to be invested in? You are supposed to be adding value to the company - not the other way round. As a contractor you take charge of your own career, decide how you'll invest your own training budget, and take advantage of any opportunities.

I've never been looked down on. Quite the opposite. I'm appreciated for what I can do. And the fact that if there isn't any work to do, I go elsewhere, without charge! I've had the occasional numpty who shows jealousy of my lifestyle - but if they're that bothered, they should contract themselves - if they're good enough.

Tip for any contractors. Always buy the first round when you go for a drink.