From the Beaufort Observer —
“We would suggest that our politicians go slow on “fixing” this problem. It is not as simple as McClatchey claims. Take a general contractors who is building an apartment complex as an example. It is not practice for him to employ all of the workers who work on such projects. Many of them come in and do a specialized job, such as pouring concrete and in a few days are gone to another job, maybe even a competitor’s project. The same is true in the technology sector. A business may need someone to install a network but they do not need permanent employees. They have an independent contractor who comes in temporarily and does the job and then moves on, taking with him his “employees.”
And example is Beaufort County Schools. They use independent contractors to keep the grass cut a few months out of the year. It makes more sense than hiring employees to do the job.
Our point is that the use of independent contractors is an essential part of modern commerce.
One reason for the increase in the use of independent contractors is the simple fact that government has made employment so complex and costly that many businesses simply can’t comply with all the regulations and requirements and still stay in business. Thus, we have to wonder if the solution is not more regulations as McClatchy suggests but rather to reduce regulations on businesses who use essentially temporary workers.
We just think the regulators may be as much of the problem as the struggling business people who are being blamed. What we are confident of is that it is a very complex issue and no simple answer is likely to be workable It seems to us that this is a perfect example of where the government simply “doing something” may make the problem even worse. We don’t need a cure that is worse than the disease..”
Read the full story at Be careful in just “doing something” about independent contractors.
