I am a contract employee who gets work via an agency. I have full health benefits (health, vision, dental which costs me about $200/mo), paid holiday, vacation,

I am a contract employee who gets work via an agency. I have full health benefits (health, vision, dental which costs me about $200/mo), paid holiday, vacation, and even paid overtime (1.5x my hourly rate). All of this was negotiated ahead of time, along with the salary range I was looking for. Any new opportunities that are available, my agency contacts me and asks if I am interested in doing work there, or if I want to stay at my current place. I have been working at my current place in govt defense embedded work for the past 2+ years getting paid more than most direct hires with the only real downsides being no 401k matching and no personal/sick time when looking at total comp. I am also able to work from home and make my own hours, so I am more flexible than direct hires who have to remain in the office during "core hours". Some people here have been contract workers for well over a decade, so as long as the company has a need for you, you can remain on contract. If you want to go direct with the company you are contracted at, you can also negotiate that during their periods when they open up direct hiring. This is my situation here in the Midwest as a defense contractor, so it may differ elsewhere and in different fields of work. Needless to say, it's not a bad gig, especially if you can get into an area where the company can't afford to lose you. For example, I am one of two people in the entire company who knows the OS architecture for every vehicle we make, and I got paid extra money to grind out a few hours a week to learn that architecture.