Itinerant Professionals: Technical Contractors in a Knowledge Economy

After World War II, bureaucratic employment relations, rooted in the ethos and institutions of the New Deal, dominated cultures of work for nearly three decades.1 The bureaucratic bargain was simple: As long as firms remained profitable and the economy strong, employers would provide employees with secure jobs in return for effort and loyalty. Since the mid-1980s, three developments have progressively undermined the bargain. First, in the name of efficiency and global competitiveness, firms in the economy’s core have repeatedly laid off large numbers of employees independent of economic cycles. Moreover, for the first time in history, layoffs have targeted significant numbers of managers and professionals (Heckscher 1995; Osterman 1996; Cappelli 1999). Second, job tenure for men has become shorter and labor markets have become more volatile (Bureau of Labor Statistics 1998). The third and perhaps most radical break with the culture of bureaucratic employment has been the expansion of the contingent labor force (Barker and Christensen 1998).