Hacker News Reader

In general a long-term contract with the government is an almost-guaranteed deal, except in very rare cases like these. It's completely reasonable for contractors to have arranged their finances expecting to be working.

(Obviously no job is guaranteed, but most Americans still only have enough cushion for a couple months.)

Though of course the underlying risk is that few contractors are going to want to work for the US government again, making it a lot more difficult to fill some positions where skills are scarce.

The knock-on effects of this shutdown are going to be around for years.

The contracting work is profitable enough to account for the various levels of risk, from federal audits to funding delays to government shutdowns.

I predict the knock-on effects of this shutdown will be gone and forgotten within a fiscal quarter.

The best evidence of this is looking at the stock market since the partial shutdown began.

The narrative around government contract work is that it is more stable and the checks will never bounce.

Not sure why I am being downvoted - I run a consulting business myself and I wake up every day knowing that I may be asked not to return to work the following day - for any reason.