Whenever we my company bid on a new contract, we always took a certain pay cut. That's how they won the contract, they outbid the competition. In regards to the next company keeping you, depending on the line of work you just transition over to them. This was for govt. security type work though. When it gets complex in intelligence, computers, data, it can go either way; they can transition the other companies employees into the new company or they can be replaced by the new companies current workers. Always good to have other options in case the work is no longer there. That's how I always expected it as the job was very insecure.