5 months of contract remaining - advice

leni

Ok, it's just really beginning to dawn on me that I only have a job for 5 more months. Now I'm beginning to get anxious about the future. Their is a chance my job will be continued but this is totally up in the air and no idea when I'll be told yes or no.

Now I've just been doing a revised SOA and I'm concerened about what will happen and what we should do. My monthly income is £1400 and obviously we can't afford to loose this much money.

We have debts totalling £8245.16 (reducing by a minimum £510 per month) plus normal outgoings of £1000 not including petrol and food. Our current monthly income is £2400.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? Can anyone give any advice?
I realise we need to be making cut backs NOW and saving incase I don't get kept on (though I'm willing to take on any job to pay the bills and know I could get something somewhere)

My biggest dilema is I'm not confident in finding a similar salary job in the area, and I'm torn between going for a new job when I could be kept on for another 2 years if I hold out until March 2007, but it could also backfire.

yung

Very hard decision indeed when you are on contract, the dilemna is the uncertainty. if I was in that position I will start looking for a new job or new contract now.

KatrinaC_2

Could you try having an informal discussion with either your boss or HR to see what the chances of being kept on are? They might interpret your asking as keeness to stay in the job, or at least interpret it as a natural concern.

Kat

adypem

leni wrote:

Ok, it's just really beginning to dawn on me that I only have a job for 5 more months. Now I'm beginning to get anxious about the future. Their is a chance my job will be continued but this is totally up in the air and no idea when I'll be told yes or no.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? Can anyone give any advice?
I realise we need to be making cut backs NOW and saving incase I don't get kept on (though I'm willing to take on any job to pay the bills and know I could get something somewhere)

My biggest dilema is I'm not confident in finding a similar salary job in the area, and I'm torn between going for a new job when I could be kept on for another 2 years if I hold out until March 2007, but it could also backfire.

Leni,
5 months is a long time in the world of contracting. Anything can happen with your current deal.
When I was contracting I started to look for another one when I had about 1 month remaining on the contract, whilst at the same time I prompted my line manager that I was approaching end of contract and asked about what the chances of an extension where.

If you don't get an extension, then you will be entering the job market at a good time March/April - new tax year and companies might have a bit more cash flowing around. I always found that the hardest times to find contract work was December/Jan.

What line of work are you in, if you don't mind me asking ?

One thing to remember about contract work is that the nature of it is short term, and whilst you can be rewarded more for this, you need to have your eyes wide open to the fact that you could be out of work for a period of time.

I happily contracted for 2.5 years, but decided that I wanted to go back into permanent role. Is this something you could do ?

Hope it helps.

leni

I work for a charity, I started work here 4 years ago P/T on a 6 month contract but never got told to stop coming in and still got paid then in Oct 04, the company got some funding from the council to employ me F/T for 2.5 years. It's not the companies decision if I'm kept on, it all depends on the funding. I'm trying to organise a meeting with the council for early December to negioate another contract but theirs no guarartees. I have enough of an underspend to keep me on for 4 months full-time and 8 months part-time if it comes to it. I always land on my feet usually, but you only have so many lives

SunderlandBlackCat

I was a contractor for 8 years & I'd advise starting to look for another job now. If you can find something else before your current contract is up then you have that security behind you if you decide to approach your current employer for an extension of your contract & they say no or agree to extend but won't put it in writing.

Whatever you do though don't wait until the last month or so as things do change quite quickly in contracting & informal hints that the contract will be renewed can be just cynical attempts to keep ypu working until the end of the contract & then the written contract never appears & you're left with nothing.

Best of luck.