Posted on 04/21/2014 7:23:05 PM PDT by 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....
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
it’s work
For centuries, all work was “temporary”. The concept of “career” is relatively new.
The temp phenomenon is driven in part by excess labor and insufficient demand.
To add stability to jobs, you first have to add stability to American industry. That means raising the import tariffs, so that we stop the off-shoring of American industries.
Then we need to reach full employment, and companies will start seeking to lock in talent instead of using temporary pools.
It appears that permanence has become passe in many facets of this “new economy.” So sad.
BUMP!
In the Hoover-Roosevelt Great Depression of the 1930’s, men looked for WORK.
Now in the Bush-Obama Great Recession, men look for a JOB.
Due to the Rule of Obamanation, WORK is not a PC goal, only a “decent-paying” JOB is PC.
As WORK is slowly regulated out o by the Rule of Obamanation a man’s JOB becomes finding a JOB.
BTW, The Rule of Obamanation is as follows:
“ Fundamentally transform the United States of America” into the Utopia where there is no incentive to work, anymore.
Ordinarily I wouldn’t have pushed this. But if you live in LA and can get on the good side of the people at Central Casting, you’ll get a SAG card. Turn on the charm (hopefully short of the casting couch) and you’ll be working a lot.
But you’ve got to be personable and charming without seeming a schmoozer. A neat trick if one can pull it off, with a just little of, “The stuff that dreams are made of.”
“Break a leg.”
I don’t have paid vacation or benefits other than I like the people I work with and I only work when I want.
Good luck with all that these days in Hollywood.
At least all these people aren’t tied down to a permanent job.
Now they can paint, or sing, or do whatever the hell the WH considers ‘freeing’.
Can’t be, people right here say Americans are lazy, who refuse good paying full time jobs with benefits and pensions....Like those in government get.
Government is the biggest employer in the U.S. because they produce so much!
I bet those in government get all that because they’ve spent decades working hard choking the life out of country while pulling tax payers up on ropes like a pinatas, beating coins out of them. That’s honorable hard work.
Was out of work for 6 months. Took a job at a hotel as a guest services rep. (Front desk). It is fun. Was offered full time at a law firm as a legal assistant for more money. Took that job but still working part time at hotel.
Those 6 months without a job was scary. Never had a problem before finding work. Very grateful.
‘Temp work’ is about as ‘cut-throat’ as it gets. If you ever get anything worse than a cold and unable to work for more than a day or two, you’re gone.(they would rather you show up and infect other employees) Death in the family? Too bad. If you’re hired on as a ‘temp’ or contractor at an employer with a labor union, the union thugs will HATE you, and you had better drive a car to work you don’t mind being vandalized.
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’. If you’re skilled and fit in, much of the time, they’ll hire you on with the company.
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.
Raise the tariffs and lower the income tax by an equal amount.
There is a hidden cost to the cheap imports. The cost of 100 million Americans on food stamps, obamacare supplements, and other support programs.
We tariff foreign producers less than we tax American producers. We need to restore the import tariffs.
That’s what our founding fathers did and it worked well for America
You can eliminate all regulations and all taxes and you still aren’t going to be competitive with Chinese labor willing to work for $2/day.
But there is no reason we should let our American industries be dismantled by competition from Chinese labor.
To make matters worse, Chinese policies keep the dollars from coming back to buy trade goods, but instead are buying U.S. Equities and Stocks. They are forcing us to liquidate America in order to get those cheap trade goods. It’s time to raise the import tariffs and protect American industry.
Our market is large enough and there is enough competition within our market that we don’t need external competition. Not when our unemployment is high like it is.
What I am seeing is loads of reqs for temp workers that demand a BEE deg and want to pay $12 hr.
Sure! ....And due to the “shortage” of skilled people(who will work for $12 per hour), they have to bring them in from India or somewhere!
It is craptacular out there.
If you believe economic resources are scarce (finite), then import duties won't accomplish what you hope to accomplish. Yes, import duties will protect domestic industries that cannot compete globally. But the resources used by those inefficient industries, are resources that cannot be employed by more efficient industries that can compete globally. In the end, we consumers have to pay higher prices for those protected goods, leaving us with fewer dollars to spend on other goods.
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 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.
I'm all in favor of reciprocal import duties on countries who put duties on our goods. But otherwise, let each country dominate in the industries where they have a competitive advantage. When that happens, everybody wins.
I know many will flame me for this, so here is one case where I really do believe in protection. (Flame suit on.)
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