Should this article include information about contract workers?

More and more jobs are being converted from being done by employees to be done by contract workers. In fact, the USA PATRIOT Act included a mandate that 700,000 federal jobs be converted to contract work.

In my mind, this is the same thing as permatemp, but brings in a much larger picture, namely, the changing nature of the working environment in the U.S.

I'm new here, so I want to get a sense of the community before I start doing anything.

There are many forces that lead to companies firing their workers, and bringing in contract workers. Should this be referenced?

What is the difference between "permatemp" and "contract worker"?

Should a separate article be written? I looked up both "contractor" and "contract worker" in the Wiki search box, and the only thing I found that even referred to employment issues was "outsourcing", which is different- at least in the Wiki article.

In the Wiki article, outsourcing was referring to moving the control of a project to another company, as well as the work, whereas contract workers can still be managed and directed n-house, while being hired by and paid through an outside agency.

If we don't want to talk about contract workers here, I don't see another article to point the readers to.

Would it be better to start a new topic of "contract worker" and link it to this article on permatemp (which, in my mind, is almost equivalent to "Contract worker", or write a new article (not likely; it's much easier to edit an existing entry that start a new one) and put a reference to it on this page?

MargaretBartley 21:01, 8 March 2007 (UTC)