Differences
In contract you do the admin of your salary yourself, your own taxes, epf, socso, etc. If you don't, LHDN will come after you.

You cannot reclaim business costs. Everything to perform the business is on you. That means your own tools, laptop, etc. All the cost to do the business is on you.

You have to budget salary for the time you won't have work after the contract ends before the next employment opportunity.

You get no sick leaves, holidays. If you don't work you get less pay if say you take a sick leave.

You do not qualify for loans under contract work.

Contract opportunities give recruiters more profit than full time employment that is why you see a lot more contract offers, and many of them pay the same as full time so it means you are earning half full time if you take it.

This is why, if they don't offer at least double for contract compared to full time, don't bother. Companies take contracts, not people.

Working for grab is an example of a freelance/contract work. Do you like it? if not don't bother.

Your insurance premiums will be high.

Germans love to use subcontraction. I boycott apple due to labour treatment that they turn a blind eye by using 3rd party. German companies love to do the same, a few years ago it came to light that many german factories were abusing workers via subcontractception, and most of these workers were from 3rd world european countries. German car companies d othe same even in malaysia. Want to work for mercedes as a core software developer? Its 1 year on contract, then 6 months on probation. This here is abuse as the core team is a permanent team not a temporary thing, you either hire full time internally, or fully contract the work to a 3rd party company. I always recommended people to boycott german cars since they were expensive, provided bad service, didn't last, you didn't get what you pay for, and now to add to the list, labour abuse. mercedes hire malaysians under this same abusive manner, and yet malaysians still buy mercs and still think highly of it. Heck we even have a culture of being successfull owning a mercedes. To me, if you own a mercedes you are a failure. If you own a perodua or toyota, i'd respect you more. owning brands like GM and new hondas will also lose my respect.

So no i'm against contract work 90% of the time unless they can pay appropriately.

if only it were that simple. Grab is an example. Take away all the cost of operation and your salary is actually very low. In full time, the company pays for cost of operation.

Many companies will not pay anything more than what is stated in the contract, and like juniper would rather break the contract and fire you during any changes. The law protects employees better.

Then thats good for you. Not everyone can do their taxes right and some govs will question you if you do it yourself rather than some company.

The issue i have with contract is simply down to how companies will try to mistreat and undercut everything they can. A lot of contracts i find are offered close to employee, and because the cost is borne by you, can cheap out there. If they did this with employee its a lawsuit waiting to happen because then they too must provide the tools. Not every job has a low overhead and grab is an example as your car does take quite a bit to operate. So a taxi driver loses half on contract just to costs. This is the point i am trying to make, is that you bare the costs and admin of everything.

The other important point to know is that, under a contract, getting any tax agency even LHDN or IRS to refund your costs back can be absolutely terrifying from requiring audits to having to pay people to audit you or just being a complete arse about refunds, because a company pays their income taxes on nett profit, thats profit after all the costs and salaries have been paid, while you getting a pay pay your taxes on your salary, not your nett. Meaning you pay your taxes irregardless of your costs. This is one reason i do not like contracts as an individual.

Lets not forget, germany abused the contract laws, allowing them to mistreat workers using contracts (oh some other person is gonna handle their logistics attitude). Laws better protect employees and banks consider your financials based on permanent employment better than contract even if you are lower paid. So before you consider a contract position, consider the overheads you will have to face, are they more or less than salary after taxes?