Are Permanent Roles more attractive than Contracts in today's market

I recruit for multiple business lines for Oracle and one trend that I have been noticing for the past while is that more and more contractors are approaching me for permanent work with Oracle.

This trend started late last year with a number of contract candidates with a specific skill set approaching me and again I have seen this happen this year over the past few months. I think that contractors are looking for permanent work now as an option due to a number of factors.

1) In the industry a number of large implementation projects have come to a close and I do not believe there have been similar sized projects requiring the contract numbers there was a few years back.

2) I think people are interested in working at Oracle to get the chance grow and develop their careers and get the opportunity to do some industry leading work. I think people have seen Oracle's success over the past few years and want to be associated with that. We have some great employees that really drive our culture here that attracts people to us.

3) I believe that to a smaller degree the economic uncertainty, rising interest, petrol prices, etc.... has caused some contractors to look for that stability that a permanent role provides.

I read a number of the job reports that are published in the market and while they give mixed results depending on whose reports you read, these comments above are just what I have seen in my role talking daily to people in the IT industry that I have noticed mover the past 6-9 months more than in previous years.