This article brings new insights on the systemic multi-level configuration of precarious work to advance towards its contextual understanding. The study develops a grounded analytical approach to the analysis of 48 interviews with public sector employees. Workers interpret ideas about their challenging working conditions, unveiling macro, meso and micro-level interactions in the context of new public management. Two emerging and interrelated categories are discussed: 1) the macro-meso articulation of precarious work, which reveals organisational patterns that promote highly skilled but contractually disposable workers, their challenging infrastructure and space conditions. 2) The macro-meso configuration of precarity at the micro level shows how workers' working conditions drive stress and promote a culture and ethos of sacrifice, unveiling precarity's multifaceted influence and perpetuation. The article provides new insights into the importance of advancing context-based understandings of precarious work and suggests a research agenda to inform management and the sociology of precarious work.
