somebody asked me there recently on YouTube about the advantages or
disadvantages of employing somebody or perhaps getting an independent
contractor it depends on which side of the fence you are if you are the one
who is supplying the labor supplying the the the grunt work as it were then in the
normal course of events if you're an employee you have a huge degree of protection
once you're in the job 12-months indeed in certain respects in certain in
relation to certain legislation once you are in the job at all you have a lot of
protection you have a lot of protection on the statute books and you have the
protection in relation to health and safety in relation to unfair dismissal
taxes rest breaks and so on and so forth Ireland is quite a good country from an
employee perspective insofar as there is quite a lot of legislation on the
statute books which is protective of employees more so than in the UK for
example or in the United States now if you're an employee a hard-pressed
employee or one who feels you've got an unfair shake for a while then you might
find that hard to believe but believe you me it is far more strict and tougher in
the UK or the United States for example in the Republic of Ireland you only need
12 months service to bring a claim for unfair dismissal in United Kingdom you
need 24 months two years twice the length of time so by and large the
protection for employees in the Republic of Ireland is quite good it's quite
extensive so from the point of view of supplying labor and working in some
place you're actually far better off being an employee now you may have
ambitions to be self-employed you may be very ambitious to grow and grow perhaps
a little business and you want to go from being an employee to being
self-employed contractor that's fair enough but you do need to understand
that you're a self-employed contractor or a self-employed
businessperson you enter into a contract with the other party as an equal
so you're an adult you are a business person you have pretensions or ambitions
to be an entrepreneur and therefore you need to negotiate the best deal that you
can once you do that though you're bound by that contract between you and
the person or the company that you're supplying with your labor and the bottom
line is you're not an employee you have no entitlement to anything save for what
is set out in the contract and that would be basically setting out that
you're gonna do certain amount of work or provide certain services and in
return you get paid a certain rate that's about the height of it I mean
you'll have a termination period and you'll have a notice period in
respect of termination and so on and so forth but from a pure protection point
of view if you're concerned about the future if you're concerned about your
rights if you are not somebody who is prepared to or has any huge ambitions
about growing a business or starting out on your own then you're far better off
being an employee because it's safer and you've more protection if on the other
hand you want to become self-employed and become an entrepreneur well clearly
you're gonna have to make the leap sooner or later
now from the perspective however of the person or company who is who needs
the service who needs the grunt work who needs the labor that person would be far
better off getting an independent contractor why because he doesn't or she
doesn't have to worry about all of the employment law protections for the
employee in other words the boot is on the other foot now and you are entering
into a contract with an independent contractor who was going to provide
certain services certain on certain terms and conditions and you need to negotiate
again the best deal that you can and that's really it yes if you don't have the
work if you don't have any requirement for the work or for the labor then you
can simply say look at I have nothing for you this week or whatever but you don't
have the ongoing obligation of day in day out week in week out paying an
employee who you perhaps don't have enough work
for so that's the two huge differences I suppose or some of the differences
between being an employee and being a self-employed contractor to summarize
again it depends on which side of the fence sits you're on if you are the
business and you need service you need labor you need somebody to do a
particular task for you then the cheapest way or not so much the cheapest
way but probably the cheapest way in the long run is to get an independent
contractor because that way you're not obliged in relation to employment law
you don't have to give a steady stream of work and you can pick up and drop off
the independent contractor as you see fit and as the needs of your business
acquires that's it hope you find it useful you might give me a thumbs up
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