For Many Americans, 'Temp' Work Becomes Permanent Way of Life

NBC News ^ | April 20, 2014 | Martha C. White

[2ndDivisionVet]

For Americans who can’t find jobs, the booming demand for temp workers has been a path out of unemployment, but now many fear it’s a dead-end route.

With full-time work hard to find, these workers have built temping into a de facto career, minus vacation, sick days or insurance. The assignments might be temporary — a few months here, a year there — but labor economists warn that companies’ growing hunger for a workforce they can switch on and off could do permanent damage to these workers’ career trajectories and retirement plans.

“It seems to be the new norm in the working world,” said Kelly Sibla, 54. The computer systems engineer has been looking for a full-time job for four years now, but the Amherst, Ohio, resident said she has to take whatever she can find.

“I know a lot of people who are doing this temping. It seems to be the way this is going,” she said.

Sibla’s husband, 67, got a buyout offer from his former employer and is now retired, but she has minimal retirement savings in her own name. “When you’re working as a temp you don’t get any of that. Nothing,” she said. The couple is downsizing to a smaller home and trying to sell the one they live in now to reduce expenses....

[VerySadAmerican]

You’re kidding, right? I had a SAG card, had a fairly large role in a hit film and still got the feeling I’d have to sell my soul. I wouldn’t recommend anyone getting into that business. It’s evil. Lay down with dogs. Get up with fleas. And fleas can lead to heartworms.

[dfwgator]

And fleas can lead to heartworms.

Or these days, AIDS.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Contracting has pluses as well as minuses. It can lead to the creation of small businesses.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Hollywood is pretty evil today.

But they aren’t the only people making pictures.

[Rembrandt]

“That means raising the import tariffs, so that we stop the off-shoring of American industries.”

I agree with your comments except for the above. IMHO, we simply need to get the heel of the boot off Industry’s neck and allow industry to act on its own behalf in terms of who to hire, how long to work per week and how to administer their HR departments. Holder’s gestapo prevents all the above actions on the part of industry and we’re just plain stuck in the ditch as a result. It won’t get better til Holder and his boss, the other thug, are out.

Industry also needs to believe that the heel of the boot won’t come back down as soon as industry takes some tiny action that BIG gummint doesn’t fully subscribe to.

[onedoug]

Sorry. Just trying to help.

[onedoug]

No.

[VerySadAmerican]

Smiling but not LOL. It’s got to be pretty damned funny to get me to LOL. I usually just Ha!

[CaspersGh0sts]

And perhaps get rid of non-Americans in the workforce and slow immigration.

[setha]

Having said that, it can be better than nothing, and at many places these days, you’re hired as a ‘temp’ so they can try you out, as it’s an opportunity to get your ‘foot in the door’.

That's how it's "supposed to work". However, it is being used as a means to manage uncertainty - resolving the "immovable object meeting an irresistible force" situation.

In addition, more temporary labor exists in non-temp lines of work, the less prosperous the economy is at a given time and place. By extension, one could plausibly argue that it also indicates government intervention as well.

Given the above, it's part of why I dislike Obamacare. It completely disincentivizes the search for or providing of work, much less in good faith.

During these crazy days of repressive laws/regulation and the constant threat of being litigated into oblivion, many employers gain a layer of protection via ‘temp’ job agencies or hiring on contractors.

The protection might be there, but it does not come without cost. The good people end up leaving, knowing that they have options elsewhere. Anyone without an alternative gets to know what churn is in the job market.

By the sound of it, such a setup resembles a bad labor union. The dues system exists (wrap/conversion rates, fees to agency), the lack of support by the agency towards the participants, and that it disincentivises productivity towards the minimum required(versus the highest quality).

What happened to the time where employers could generally get along with and inspire their workforce, instead of having to handle them? Those kind of employers (for those that choose that path) could give a sense of pride in their employee's work, even if it paid less.

[Barnacle]

The temp phenomenon is driven in part by excess labor and insufficient demand.

Is that why the government is seeking to approve more visas for high tech workers? /s

I agree with your tariff perspective though.

[crusher2013]

You know what Danny, I think you’re right.

This Free Trade, Cheap Labor is killing America.

[dfwgator]

What happened to the time where employers could generally get along with and inspire their workforce, instead of having to handle them?

Much of it has to do with technology, especially anything that is transmittable. Now the potential labor pool is global, which increases labor supply, and thus, exerts downward pressure on wages,

[ottbmare]

I had a SAG card, had a fairly large role in a hit film and still got the feeling I’d have to sell my soul. I wouldn’t recommend anyone getting into that business. It’s evil.

I agree that most of it is evil, but it's possible to pick up the odd few hundred or thousand bucks on an erratic basis by doing a bit part, doing a commercial, and working in other small ways. These don't require either magnificent acting skills, great beauty, or a willingness to get covered with fleas, because they just aren't important enough to attract dirty dogs. They're just something that's fun and interesting to do in order to pick up a little extra cash without actually trying to make a living in a vile business.

[equaviator]

“As WORK is slowly regulated out o by the Rule of Obamanation a man’s JOB becomes finding a JOB.”

The pre-employment business is booming.

[Age of Reason]

It’s worse than that.

Technology is increasingly doing the work that people once did.

And technology is not just replacing blue collar jobs, it’s replacing white collar jobs.

Think about it: why should someone pay another human for what he knows, when what he knows can be found on the net for free.

This man said it was going to happen: http://www.amazon.com/End-Work-Jeremy-Rifkin/dp/0874777798/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1398165267&sr=1-1&keywords=the+end+of+work

And when technology does all the work and no one has a job, what then?

I suspect either all technology is nationalized with the government issuing ration cards to all of us that we can exchange for technologically supplied goods and services.

Technology will result in a socialist dream.

Like I’ve been saying for years and years: technology is destroying freedom.

[KoRn]

"What happened to the time where employers could generally get along with and inspire their workforce, instead of having to handle them? Those kind of employers (for those that choose that path) could give a sense of pride in their employee's work, even if it paid less."

I believe at MBA school now, they may Lobotomize the area of the student's brain that could initiate leadership qualities. (along with realism, mathematics, common sense, and human emotions)

[DannyTN]

"Are you really helping American workers this way? Yes, you are. But only some to the detriment of others! -- The extra dollar Joe Public has to spend for protected American orange juice, leaves him with one less dollar he can spend at *my* unprotected business."

It's not really to the detriment of others. Keep in mind that you are paying for the unemployed workers. So you pay for the cheap import and then you turn around and have to pay for the unemployed Americans. If those Americans were working, then many good things happen.

• Instead of being a government outflow, they become a government revenue, reducing the budget deficit, the federal debt and eventually taxes.
• They are also now spending money in the economy. Imagine the improved profits if suddenly most businesses customer base grew by 30%. Well if you put 25% Unemployed back in to the workforce, then 25%/75% is a 30% increase in people with money to spend. And they will spend most of it here in the American economy.
• Plus I recommended lowering the income tax by an equal amount. That means Americans are keeping more of their income.
• They'll be working but not to the detriment of other Americans. They'll be working to the detriment of the Chinese. It's not our fault the Chinese have pursued policies that kept their wages low. I don't mind helping them, but not in ways that bring America down.
• With manufacturing back here, we are better prepared to defend ourselves in time of war.
• With fewer people dependent on government, big government is reduced.

It's easy to see the jobs lost in a non-competitive industry when those jobs are allowed to go away. What nobody sees is what other industries -- and the jobs they would create -- could emerge if those squandered resources were freed up.

Nobody is seeing it because it is not happening. We've been off-shoring for decades now. And we've reached a point where we are offshoring faster than new job creation is occurring. Worse, because we no longer have the manufacturing here, our ability to innovate is now impaired.

[equaviator]

Could we ever hope to repeat the feat of the Arsenal of Democracy without American made machine tools?

[9YearLurker]

Where are you seeing that?