First of all, you get benefits as a full-time employee that contractors don't get, like healthcare, disability insurance, and paid time off. (This all mostly boils down to money of course.)
Probably more importantly, yes, a company can in general simply tell you your services are no longer needed one morning. However, in reality, absent either company downsizing or a documented performance issue, that is unlikely to happen out of the blue. Whereas not renewing a contract at the end of some project is commonplace.
Employee status vs. independent contractors is actually something of a political football at the moment as contractors include both the stereotypical gig economy workers and freelance writers who want to freelance as well as contractors of other sorts.
Health-care and other benefits would be priced into any contractor's fees. IE, for a full-time job that paid $100k + benefits, you'd need ~$160k on contract to make up for the additional taxes, self-paid benefits, etc.
Looking at peers who struck out on their own, you can make good money as a contractor, but you typically need to be top of your profession and able to command massive fees. And like any business owner, the pressure to always have too much work usually ruins any chance at using the money for longer, more extravagant vacations.
First of all, you get benefits as a full-time employee that contractors don't get, like healthcare, disability insurance, and paid time off. (This all mostly boils down to money of course.)
Probably more importantly, yes, a company can in general simply tell you your services are no longer needed one morning. However, in reality, absent either company downsizing or a documented performance issue, that is unlikely to happen out of the blue. Whereas not renewing a contract at the end of some project is commonplace.
Employee status vs. independent contractors is actually something of a political football at the moment as contractors include both the stereotypical gig economy workers and freelance writers who want to freelance as well as contractors of other sorts.