In my experience, I honestly didn't see much difference between myself and the regular gov employees. We did the same work, on the same projects, in the same o

In my experience, I honestly didn't see much difference between myself and the regular gov employees. We did the same work, on the same projects, in the same offices, etc. The only differences were that I had to additionally report to my own company on my progress, and I got paid differently (and more of course). It really was just an end-run around the government's own inability to offer this form of employment on their own, and also to use the contracting firm as a sort of recruiting agency. I saw the exact same thing (but from the employee side) when I worked at a huge tech company. Using contractors was a way of getting people in quickly (much faster than normal recruiting), and also being able to get rid of them quickly if they're bad workers: just don't renew their contract after 6 months. Good ones were hired as regular employees because it was cheaper long-term.