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I've earned quite a bit more than I ever could have by
working for academies but, I believe it's only the most experienced
of freelancers that can afford to relax even for a second. It's true that you can make quite a bit working
for some agencies, especially if you've got good buddy-buddy contacts
within the company and you're a real pro. You can also improve
your marketability back home by working in some English academies.
However, a very few of us long-termers will remain perpetually
unsatisfied under the sorts of unstable "temp agency"
conditions we find in companies here (and with the low salaries)
and will only be happy when we work for ourselves. (Updated February.
6, 2005)
If you go to work for yourself 100% like I do, you will find that
the situation won't change much. Whatever was ailing you while
working for agencies and academies will continue to ail you on
the "outside." The only difference out here is that
I'm making twice as much as I was making on the "inside."
However, I am literally working twice as much. While on the inside,
others did the marketing, the management, and half a dozen other
tasks that one has to do. Now, I have to do it all myself and
I usually work every day including Sundays.
It's worth the risks for me and I'm quite happy doing a lot of
the extra work because creating things keeps me happy as does
learning all the different aspects of being a freelancer.
In fact, I feel it's only risky if you haven't got enough experience
and ability to be going totally freelance in the first place.
Company
Requires English Teachers
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 "Quick question: I want to go Autonomo in September,
but when I asked my current companies, … and …, they tried to persuade
me to stay on contract and made negative comments concerning my chances
of finding work. What's your thoughts?" April 19, 2005.
Answer: I'm a DIY type of guy and it's going really well for me (at the moment), but I can't say exactly how well it would go for you, so I would prefer not to be too forceful with my advice (As they say here: "you should give half of your advice in money"). However, my advice without the money or the risk is: "go autónomo".
What I think is: "of course they'll discourage you from doing certain things." Once you get your foot in the door, the rest of the body may soon follow (your foot out the door). If you go freelance (autonomo), you will have more options as to taking odd hours here and there and it'll be harder for them to keep you on a string.
My own experience in the last 3 weeks is that I've had 9 offers
from companies including one this morning from a legal firm
on Gran Via and one at the English speaking Meetup on Saturday.
However, I've also had some dry spells in the past couple of
years from companies, though I've never had any problem finding
and keeping private classes.
In my experience, you'll also be able to find work as an autónomo
in agencies and academies. What's more is that (I think) they'll
take you more seriously and pay you more. It's all part of the
game. (As a matter of fact, I still even get calls from agencies
from time-to-time though they're coming fewer and farther between.)
Again, I think that you can make twice to three times as much
money in the end as an autónomo, but the decision as well as
the risks are yours to take. I made 3,000 euros last month and
I know another teacher on MadridTeacher who did as well (they
say it's an average). However, we're both working our @sses
off in one way or another.
My frustration... (A post recovered off the hacked
forum: March 26, 2005. Author: dunno.)
I guess I just get frustrated when students forget that we make our
living from this, and when I reserve a space for a student and months
go by before they want to or can start up after a break- or they cancel
at their own whim. I must say I have been pretty lucky overall, but
its something to think about. I have turned to over-booking just a
bit, in order to cover cancellations, etc. I get tired of earning
300 euros less than planned each month because of some cancellations.
And really it´s not the money so much as the planning and organization.
And the unsure months. Now I know why the airlines do it. - I have
also learned to wait for no man. I may have a few offers accepted
that conflict with each other, but simply because one or two or all
of them seem to always drop - I’ve never had to choose one over the
other yet. But it is still rewarding and when you find students who
are respectful with your time- they are the keepers.
An email I received on January 2, 2011: Briefly I've completed CELTA in Madrid. I have a TEFL diploma as well and a Bachelors and Masters degree. I also speak Spanish. I have a number of interviews set up during this month. Some require me to be an autonomo and some are contract based. On your clip you said you do both? I haven't worked in Madrid or Spain before. I'm 28 and this is a new venture for me. What do you think is my best option?
My response: If you want to know whether to work on a contract or as an “autonomo”, you need to be a "asesor", lawyer or even a psychic to really understand what's best around here. In other words, I don’t know . . . because I’m mostly just an English teacher, but I’ll tell you what I think and hopefully you’ll be able to make some sense of it and won’t end up as confused as I am about the whole thing.
To begin with, if I were cynical, I'd think they (the governing class) were keeping everything super-complicated on purpose to leave themselves plenty of loopholes to take advantage of while leaving the rest of us out of the loop. (This is clearly a tiered society and some tiers are clearly better at the pork barrel thing than others.)
Generally speaking neither option (working on a contract or as an "autónomo" - self-employed freelancer) is perfect to say the least, but I think that over the past 17 years working as an "autónomo" has made me the most money by far, and money-in-pocket has so far turned out to be the best sort of policy to follow.
So, basically, I think being an “autonomo” is better if you’re a short-termer, but only if you’re going to work as an in-company teacher. However, that said, I think that "autónomos" have no power as a group whatsoever in this society and are constantly getting the blunt end of the stick. In other words, I think that if they need money to turn this country around, they'll take it from us as a group first rather than from themselves (the pork barrel groups) because it's easier.
The same sort of thing can be said about working as an "autónomo" for a company rather than on a contract. If and when the time comes to make cuts, it's much harder to sack somebody on a contract than a freelancer, who's typically just an email away from being asked to hit the street . . . as long as your students will put up with it, of course. (Generally what happens when you’re an "autónomo" is that you just stop getting offers of new classes rather than losing the ones you have, especially IF you're getting paid more than the next acceptable guys in line.)
In any case, whether as an "autónomo" or on a contract, either way I think I'm screwed in the long run because of recent changes. I'm not so sure anymore about my retirement in 20 years. The government is in the process of putting back our retirement age 2 years to 67 and it'll probably take just about our entire working life into account instead of the last 15 years it used to be . . . maybe 35 years? What this means, I think, is that they've just pulled the rug out from under all of us who have been working here for years hoping for a half-decent retirement.
As an "autónomo" I paid the minimum 240 euros into the system for years on the understanding that I could raise this amount at age 49 to an amount which would have produced a far better retirement at age 65-67, because the averages used to determine our retirement were based on what we earned in our last 15 years of working life. Now, because they're changing the system and they'll probably take my whole working life into account, I may not ever be able to do what I had planned because improving the averages may be nearly impossible. It'll probably be better to put more into private pension funds, etc. What a rip off!!! I’d like to see them (the pork barrel classes) reduce their own copious entitlements first before they do away with ours. They’ve got billions and billions they can save just by cutting numerous inefficient and costly duplication of services and bureaucracies.
(By the way, some people are happy that this is happening because Spanish companies tend to dump oldsters meaning that though some Spaniards might have earned quite a bit more when they were younger, because they didn't earn nearly as much – or even much of anything - in their last 15 years, they ended up getting a shitty retirement. Now, a few of these unfortunate Spaniards will actually end up getting a better retirement. But I don’t think the government would be doing this at this point in the “crisis” if it actually ended up costing them more.)
In any case . . . I digress . . . I'm currently both working on a contract with the university I work for and as an “autónomo.” If I last another 20 years at my U, then I may well get a better retirement than my “autónomo” one because of it. (I’ve been told that you have to choose one or the other and you don’t get both. This sucks too and is just another way they screw “autónomos” along with not letting “autónomo” teachers discount their VAT on their car purchases even though it is clearly a working expense, at least in my case.)
The main problem with working as teacher on a contract is that you rarely log in a full year’s worth of work for a full year’s of work. In their infinite wisdom, the government here seems to think that we’re all just part-timers. I guess they haven’t seen how some of us work 6-7 day weeks. They don’t take class prep time (or commute times) into account and they certainly don’t care if you can’t find teaching work at Christmas and in the summer. If you’re only working about 15-20 hours a week, Spain considers your working hours to be about 25-30% of the total (due to unpaid "holidays" and summers), meaning that it'll severely cut into your unemployment compensation and retirement, and any other benefits such as disability or widow’s pensions.
This is the source of my confusion. I think either way whether as an “autónomo” or on a contract, in the long-term I’m now screwed. Whereas a couple of years ago I would have told you that at least as an “autónomo” you would have been working 100% of the time and you could have raised the amount you paid into the system at the age of 49.
Maybe in the end what this all means is that “money-in-pocket” is still the best policy (“autónomo”). In any case, I still have to do both because I have income on both sides.
Finally, my MAPFRE agent thinks that I should give the government as little as possible and save the difference in pension funds as you cannot count on the government not to renege. Of course, he sells pension funds, so his advice isn’t unbiased. One thing is clear though, the current reform process is still not finished and anything could happen in the next couple of years. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is still hungry for all sorts of crazy reforms, not that I don’t think Spain’s system doesn’t need reforming. Also, the “crisis” itself isn’t over yet and who knows what could happen in the next 20 years.
 "20 Minutos" has some interesting stuff in Spanish on the reforma.
See more about contracts on Spainexpat: Contracts and Autonomos.
Freelance Teachers:
Becoming an “Autónomo”. How to Do It?
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