[steveBK123]

Your point about the inherent conflict between educating juniors & having lots of contractors is an important one. The most messed up teams I worked for were 1/2 (junior) contractors and this was a big issue. You basically have a team of bad developers you don't really mentor & expect to get better. As to the why, you can talk to management. The senior engineers lost that fight.

[TheCoelacanth]

Junior contractor is a position that simply shouldn't exist.

[steveBK123]

Yup.

There's an entire industry of body shops that will send you lightly trained 22 year olds, in size.