It's increasingly going like that across the board. I was happy for a few years with short term contracts as I got paid a lot more than I would have done in permanent employment, but now the rates are much lower than they were, and I'm less dazzled by cash than I used to be. Other things have become more important to me, like not wasting ten hours of every day doing pointless stuff. Shame I've not actually found any jobs that live up to my hope of being not a waste of time.
I feel you man.
One of the reasons why I'm always working abroad is that local jobs are so badly paid it's not even funny, with my last contract I worked as an external collaborator for a a foreign organization, the contract was from September to December, I earned as much as if I had worked full time for six months. That job entailed working from home, then a month long trip to Jerusalem
I have friends who work full time who get between 800 and 1200 a month, even the cheapest rent you can get is at least 350/400 per month, tomorrow I'll have to pay car insurance and that's 360, seemed like yesterday that I paid it, then there's road tax and that annual road worthyness test that costs like 200.
I only know two guys who are genuinely independent, one is in his mid-thirties, married and has his own business, the other is 37 and works as an IT guy at the local uni, of the people I know they are the only ones who don't rely to any extent on their parents, everybody else either moved back after losing jobs or finishing uni, has never moved out or has parents still supporting them, like paying their bills, car insurance, even contributing to rent.
If it weren't for the tigh-knit families, countries like Spain, Greece and Italy would have seen revolutions already, the only thing that's keeping the masses off the street is the fact that most people can still retreat to their teenage bedrooms and raid their mama's fridge. If we were a heartless culture like America, where people are selfish and don't share and help with one another there would be chaos.
