Temp Hiring Is on the Rise

Employers show confidence, but hedged with caution
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 21, 2009 5:58 AM CST
Temp Hiring Is on the Rise
Clairessa Mills looks over the main desk for help at the Labor Ready temporary employment agency in Warren, Ohio, earlier this year.   (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta)

With the economy on an upswing, employers are feeling a tad more confident—enough to bring on more temporary workers, who can easily be let go if things go south again. Temp hiring has risen for 4 months—longer than the aftermath of previous recessions, when employers started hiring permanent workers after just 2 or 3 months, the New York Times reports.

Though temp workers don’t receive many of the benefits of permanent employment, the government considers them wage-earning workers, helping to bring down the unemployment rate in 36 states last month. “I’ve never seen the job market this horrible,” said one new temp who lost his job 14 months ago. He now makes $25 an hour—“a long way down from the $135,000 a year I once made," he notes.
(More temporary employment stories.)

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