"I don't depend on contractors.
That could open up a much bigger opportunity for the company: After all, about a third of all U.S. workers are freelancers or temporary workers, and the number of businesses that depend on contractors continues to increase.
Though the administration depends on contractors with specialized expertise, he added, it conforms with all relevant federal rules.
"Long Island aerospace companies grew up at a time when they could depend on local contractors like Grumman and Republic, and they did very well servicing these companies," said Mr. Rettaliata, the president of the Air Industries Machining Corporation and the chairman of the Aerospace & Defense Diversification Alliance in Peacetime Transition, an industry group known as Addapt.
Even most members of Congress are unaware of the extent to which both the military and intelligence community have come to depend on private contractors to provide the software and ingenuity necessary for both conventional and information warfare in the 21st century.
Increasingly, experts say, masonry contractors are persuading some homeowners to chip away everything and replace the whole facade with a stucco, at a cost that can range from $20,000 to $60,000, depending on the contractor.
One installation costs an investor about $10,000 to $20,000, depending on the contractor and area.
But that prosperity has largely rained down on government contractors; federal employees, especially younger ones, depend on their middle-class wages.
Those lost jobs include positions at federal contractors, as well as at businesses that serve those contractors and, even less directly, at the businesses that depend on spending by government and contractor employees.
But he added that BP had depended on its contractors.
