The Contingent Workforce and Public Decision Making

March 16, 2012 | THOMAS FISHER, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

Those who work in the public sector know all too well that they can no longer keep going as they have, cutting budgets and squeezing services as they continue, year after year, to try to do all that they have done in the past with less and less money. They have likely already passed a tipping point after which they have to think about what they do and how to do it in completely different ways. They might wish that they could go back to the way things were, but that won't happen for one primary reason: the economy in which they now operate has changed in fundamental ways and hoping that it hasn't will only delay the inevitable and make it harder for them to adapt when they find themselves forced to change.