Blog

U.S. employers may be hesitant to hire permanent, full-timers, but they’re bringing on temporary and contract labor faster than they have in months.

The Palmer Forecast says demand for temporary workers will grow at a rate 5.9% faster this quarter than in the same period last year. And that follows a first quarter growth rate that was 6% ahead of 2012. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s no secret that staffing industry jobs are among the fastest growing in the nation, rivaled only by the expansion in healthcare (which itself employs tens of thousands of temp workers). But few parts of the country have seen as big a growth as — surprise, surprise — New Hampshire. With a state wide population of 1.3 million, surpassed by nine U.S. cities, staffing agencies in the Granite state are opening new offices and adding recruiters almost as fast as they can hire them. One of the larger agencies reports it opened a third office in the state and hired five new tech recruiters after seeing business 38% last year. Other New Hampshire firms tell a similar story, mirroring the national trend. NHBR

Temp and contract labor staffing firms ended 2012 as one of the leading contributors to job growth over the past 12 months.

For the year, temp firms added 153,400 jobs to the economy. That represents 8.4% of the 1.835 million jobs created in 2012. On average, the industry added 12,800 new jobs a month. Only a handful of other industries added more jobs, among them, healthcare (+337,700), and food services and drinking places (+285,600).

With 2.55 million temp and contract workers on the job in December, the industry is now only 107,700 new jobs away from its 10 year high of 2.6574 million workers reached in August 2006. The growth in temp services is due, in part, to the hesitancy by employers to add permanent staff in the face of uncertain economic conditions.

Increasingly though, employers see temps as a strategic part of their workforce mix. A survey by Staffing Industry Analysts found that the percentage of temps among employers of 1,000+ workers has risen to 16% from 15% in 20111 and from 11% in 2005

“The contingent workforce is now included in core strategic planning and utilized in a critical way to flex talent muscle,” writes Adrianne Nelson, director of SIA’s global services. “The recession made visible all the advantages of contingent labor. And today there is a recognition that talent comes in different packages, flexible and traditional.”

Likewise, Richard Wahlquist, president and chief executive officer of the American Staffing Association, attributed the growth in temp workers to businesses “strategically (embracing) flexible work force solutions to increase productivity and competitiveness. Although temporary and contract employment represents just under 2% of total employment, staffing firms accounted for 8% of all of new jobs created in 2012.”

The outlook for temp services in 2013 continues to be strong. A CareerBuilder survey of corporate HR leaders and hiring managers found 40% of employers plan to hire temporary and contract workers up from 36% last year. Among these employers, 42% plan to transition some temporary workers into full-time, permanent employees over the next 12 months.

The U.S. employment picture is looking decidedly brighter at the end of 2012 than it did a year ago. For its final report of the year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says the unemployment rate dropped in 45 states in November; nowhere did it rise. Read the rest of this entry »

Job growth in the temp sector accounted for 12.3% of November’s overall 146,000 jobs increase, according to numbers released from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The data, part of the monthly government jobs report out last week, put the number of workers in temporary and contract positions at 2.56 million, a 7.7% increase since November 2011. In the same period, overall employment in the U.S. increased 1.4%; a total increase of 1.89 million non-farm jobs, on a seasonally adjusted basis. The temp workforce increased by 182,800 workers. Read the rest of this entry »

Staffing agencies placed 13,600 more workers in October, growing the overall temp industry to 2.54 million. That’s a 7.7% increase over the last 12 months, and the new hires accounted for 8% of the total jobs created during the month, according to numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

However, in the BLS report issued Friday, September’s numbers were adjusted down from the previous month’s report by 7,100. That essentially makes it a wash for job gains in the temp sector over the last three months.

The broader employment services category, which includes the temp industry, registered a gain in October of 15,800 workers. The 2,200 non-temp jobs came from hiring by professional employer organizations, search firms, registries, and employment placement agencies. Specific data for these sectors isn’t available until a month after the initial report is issued.

Since the beginning of the year, the temp — contract labor — sector has added 144,000 workers, on a seasonally adjusted basis. The average monthly increase science January is 14,400. The total number rises to 148,100 using non-seasonally adjusted data. In October alone, the non-seasonally adjusted increase was 56,800 workers.

“Staffing employment growth continues to outpace overall labor market growth as businesses look strategically for higher levels of work force flexibility,” says Richard Wahlquist, president and chief executive officer of the American Staffing Association. “Staffing firms report growth in demand across many sectors, led by increases in demand for higher-skilled talent.”

At the current rate of growth, by next June the number of temp and contract workers will surpass the historical high set in August 2006. That month the BLS reported there were 2.654 million temps at work in the U.S.

In just three years, the healthcare/pharmaceutical sector in India will grow from the current $65 billion US to $100 billion US, fueled, in part, by Big Pharma’s  outsourcing of services and the growing partnering with manufacturers. Medical tourism, and the increasing availability of employer-provided health insurance in India, is also driving growth. The Economic Times says the industry’s growth will add millions — as many as 40 million by 2020 — new jobs to the Indian economy. Not only medical and biotech professionals will be in demand, but, says the report, other professionals and managers will be sought. The Economic Times

The U.S. economy is almost 400,000 jobs better off today than it was a week ago, a result of the Bureau of Labor Statistics revision of its monthly employment data.

The Bureau, part of the U.S. Department of Labor, last week released its annual draft revision of the count of working Americans. The revisions added a net of 386,000 jobs to the total count in March. When the final revisions become official early next year, the March total of employed, non-farm workers in the U.S. will be 133.249 million. Read the rest of this entry »

No matter how you look at it, the number of temps on payrolls across the country is rising.

Job numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics this morning show a slight dip in the temp workforce in August; it was down 4,900 on a seasonally adjusted basis. Without the adjustments, the number of working temps rose 49,000. Either way, though, the size of the temp workforce grew at a faster rate in the last year than did all other employment.

Between August 2011 and last month, the number of employed persons in the U.S. grew by 1.4%. The temp workforce grew by 8.9%. Both numbers are seasonally adjusted. Read the rest of this entry »

Temp hires accounted for 8.7% of the 163,000 new jobs created in July, according to seasonally adjusted data released this morning.

The report from the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics showed most sectors of the economy added workers. Only governments and utility industry showed a drop, and the latter sector was down due to a labor strike.The unemployment rate edged up to 8.3%.

The monthly jobs numbers surprised economists who were expecting an increase of 95,000 to 110.000. Nearly all the surveys found economists expecting no change in the 8.2 percent unemployment rate. Read the rest of this entry »