High Tech: High-Tech Nomads

Paul Finster Fleming has wandered the world for the past seven years. His British passport boasts stamps from 45 countries. He has lived in chilly Brussels and sunny Rio de Janeiro. He met his wife in India. Their growing brood--now numbering five--accompanied them to Washington for a year. Yet in all that time, the engineer, 43, hasn't had a permanent job.

Fleming is a global temp worker, a modern-day nomad who jets off every year or so to a new locale, where he contracts out to companies desperate for engineers savvy in mobile communications. He is earning three to four times the salary he once made as a full-time employee of companies like Ericsson--which is why he was sounding merry on a recent morning, heading out of Seattle on a three-month contract to train engineers for his latest temp boss: Ericsson. "Now I go anywhere anybody pays me to go," he says. "It's a good way to see the world. I'm meeting new people and learning new systems. Traveling the world, you become unique and invaluable."

It was inevitable that temp work would go international, especially in the telecommunications field, where cell-phone standards vary wildly--and seem to change overnight. Vendors such as Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola and network suppliers such as AT&T and Cingular must be flexible enough to work in developing countries, including China, as well as advanced markets such as Europe, where third-generation (3G) systems will soon combine high-speed voice and data. With telecom engineers in short supply and companies leery of adding full-time staff for short-term projects, contract workers have filled the gap.

Neil Franklin, 37, a former door-to-door salesman, knew nothing about the wireless world a decade ago, but he did foresee the changing dynamics of the workplace. In 1994 he founded Dataworkforce in his suburban London flat to supply skilled temps for the global cell-phone market. Today Dataworkforce has more than 300 telecom contractors employed in 54 countries by clients such as Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, AT&T, British Telecom and China Unicom. Assignments can last from two days to four years. "I always thought the industry would become dependent upon a virtual bank of knowledge, rather than the permanent employee," says Franklin. Last year Dataworkforce, which takes a 15% to 30% cut on contracts, earned $64 million, making it Britain's fastest growing company, according to a London Sunday Times survey.

The majority of the company's "virtual work force," as Franklin calls it, is from 29 to 45 years old and single, with three or more years of free-lancing experience. Many staff members are ex-military, ready to jump on a plane at a moment's notice. One U.S. team left the West Coast recently for China, while a Mexican team was heading to Southern California. Europe's lead in wireless technology makes its technicians desirable Stateside as trainers, while Americans rule overseas for their IT expertise. Workweeks can run to 60 hours or more, but the pay is hefty too, at $45 to $55 an hour.