ABSTRACTIn this paper, I deal with three main facets of the electronics assembly subcontract industry in Southern California: (a) its technological and organizational structure, (b) its employment characteristics, and (c) its transactional‐locational logic. I begin by describing production processes in the industry, and I suggest that the industry is marked by two distinctive kinds of flexible specialization. On the basis of a questionnaire survey, I show that the industry's labor force is composed for the most part of women and immigrants, and that there is a fairly distinctive gender and ethnic division of labor within individual establishments. I show too that the industry is typically arranged in an agglomerated locational pattern resulting from its transactions‐intensive nature. I end the paper with a brief allusion to some possible restructuring trends that may affect the future functioning and locational structure of the indus