here's an article on temp staffing I found on web.
THE ECONOMY
THE TEMP BIZ BOOM: WHY IT'S GOOD
Temporary employment took off in the 1990s. Today it's providing new careers and helping
American businesses run more efficiently.
JAMES ALEY
REPORTER ASSOCIATE LENORE SCHIFF
The number of temporary workers in the U.S. has nearly doubled over the past five years from 1.2 million to more than two million--a
record of job creation that beats just about every other industry in the country. Reactions to this rather stunning piece of information tend
to be either dismissive ("but they're not real jobs") or cynical ("the cheaper the labor, the higher the profits"). Commentary on the temp
industry tends to focus on business ethics, not business reality.
In fact, looking at the temp phenomenon simply as a struggle between good and evil can lead you to overlook its larger and more
fascinating implications. The growth and increasing sophistication of the temporary-employment industry is creating a national trading
floor for talent. "It's a contingency spot market," says Jessica Sweeney, a research director at the Advisory Board Co., a management
consulting firm based in Washington, D.C. Just as an exchange floor provides a fluid, efficient forum for clearing the market for
stocks, gold, and pork bellies, the temp industry is becoming a clearinghouse for buyers and sellers of skills. The economic
consequence of this phenomenon is a more flexible and efficient job market. It is also creating opportunities for workers and employers.
IT'S TRUE that most of the millions of people currently temping around the land are still filling low-wage clerical, secretarial, and
light-industrial blue-collar positions. But some of the fastest-growing segments of the temp-job market are in professional and technical
fields. These high-skill areas already make up about 20% of the total temp payroll. In an ever-widening range of professions--graphic
design, medicine, law, engineering, management--up-market temps are migrating from project to project and using temporary agencies
to handle the business side of their careers--outsourcing, in effect, their resume peddling.
Take David Dembowski, a freelance art director in San Francisco. Far from the minimum-wage stereotype of old, he charges his clients,
mostly ad agencies, $500 a day. Like many freelancers, Dembowski enjoys the freedom of picking projects but dislikes worrying about
his next job once the current one ends. To keep work coming in, he signed up with Paladin, a Chicago-based temp agency specializing
in advertising and marketing types. "Talent alone won't get you the job in this field," he says. "You also have to be in the right place at
the right time. Temp agencies help keep your name in the pool."
Many companies, for their part, are turning to temp agencies to outsource the administration of their temporary workers. Tom
O'Halloran, an analyst at Dillon Read, says that five or ten years ago companies would just call a local temp agency and order up
workers a la carte. Now that they see how important flexible staffing is to their cost structure, and realize that more and more upscale
positions can be filled by contract labor, they're hiring companies like Manpower and Olsten to set up on-site and take care of hiring,
training, and scheduling. General Motors, for example, retains Interim Services, a big staffing company based in Fort Lauderdale that
supplies every flavor of temp--from entry-level secretaries to primary care physicians--to provide doctors and nurses at 160 GM
factories around the nation.
Employers are also using temporary employment to audition possible full-time hires. Pat Taylor runs her own temp agency in
Washington, D.C., which used to specialize in paralegal temps. By 1993, supplying temporary attorneys had also become a significant
chunk of her business, as the law firms and government agencies she serviced started running leaner. The traditional method of
recruiting--summer internships for law school students--is expensive. Taylor says her clients find that hiring a temporary attorney is a
cheaper way to check someone out. And temps, she notes, "already have experience."
Just as companies are using temp assignments as a dress rehearsal before hiring, many workers see temping as a way to sniff around
for permanent jobs. According to a survey by the National Association of Temporary Staffing Services (NATSS), three-quarters of
respondents said they became temps as a way to look for a full-time position; 40% said they'd gotten permanent offers.
Not everyone who is a temp wants to be one, of course. A study by the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that roughly 60% of all
people in the "contingent work force"--including temps, leased employees, and others--say they'd rather have full-time jobs. But this
number makes no distinction between skilled and unskilled workers. Other evidence shows that the higher the skill level, the more likely
a worker is to prefer being a temp. Recent research by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago shows that white-collar temps actually earn
slightly more than their permanent counterparts. Says Daniel Sullivan, an economist who co-authored the study: "It's almost a bad idea
to talk about temps generally. I'd guess many white-collar temps are happy and want to continue as temps."
That jibes with the experience of Ray Marcy, CEO of Fort Lauderdale's Interim Services. "Lower-skilled people are looking for
full-time jobs, but as you move up the skill-level ladder, people are looking for more flexibility," he says.
There's also the issue of benefits, which are relatively rare in contingent jobs. But even temps are getting some benefits these days. For
example, Cascade Technical Staffing of Beaverton, Oregon, offers its engineering temps options like medical and dental coverage, paid
vacation, and a membership at the local warehouse club after they've worked for ten weeks.
THERE ARE CURRENTLY between 5,000 and 6,000 temporary companies in the U.S., according to NATSS; ten years ago there
were half as many. George von Stamwitz of Omnicomp Group, a market research firm in New London, New Hampshire, predicts that
the growth in clerical and administrative temp jobs will slow, but the rate of creation of higher-end positions will speed up. "Over the
next ten years you should see good growth in the market for high-skill temps, as companies become more aware of its usefulness," he
says. What other professions will get temped in the future? One sure-fire candidate: any new computer-related occupations, such as
Web page designers, predicts O'Halloran of Dillon Read. Audrey Freedman, an economic consultant based in New York City, can't
think of any business that won't be touched by the staffing business. "It's a protean kind of industry," she says. "A client says to them,
'What can you do for me?' and the industry says, 'Whatever you want.' "
The grimmer side of the rise of the temporary work force is, of course, that as long as the downsizing era grinds on, there will be an
ample supply of skilled workers looking for whatever paychecks they can find. But at least with a fluid market for talent, people can
aspire to be more than the jetsam of sinking corporate ships. |
