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Written by Tom Tobin, Democrat & Chronicle February 19, 2011
For some time, economists have been exploring mountains of employment data for signs of spring — indications that the recovery is at last sprouting permanent jobs.
The exploration has led down some thorny paths. New York state's unemployment rate, for example, is 8.2 percent, down from 8.9 percent a year earlier. But the state lost 22,000 private-sector jobs in that same 12-month period, indicating that the improvement" in the unemployment rate mostly occurred because a sizable number of people stopped looking for work and weren't being officially counted anymore. But there is a green shoot of good news. Temporary hiring, sometimes called contract hiring, rose steadily through 2010. U.S. employers added more than 300,000 temporary jobs, about a quarter of the 1.17 million in overall job growth last year. The trend also is evident in the Rochester region. In January 2010, local companies had about 23,000 people under temporary employment contract, according to the state Labor Department. By November, the number had risen to nearly 26,000. "We're hiring temporary-to-permanent at a rate of three to four a month in customer service," said Andrea McLaren, director of human resources at eHealth Global Technologies, a medical records retrieval company in Brighton. The company has been working with Employee Relations Associates, a local recruiting firm, to meet its needs. Tammy Marino, associate economist with the Labor Department, said the growth in temp workers is promising. "It's a good sign because the typical pattern of a recovery is for temporary hiring to pick up before permanent hiring does." Workers less timid Carl Lester recently opened an office of Patrice & Associates in Bloomfield, Ontario County. The company handles management recruiting for local restaurants, mostly the chain variety. He said he's seeing so-called hospitality businesses more willing to hire for permanent slots. Just as important, he said, local workers are more willing to make a move.
"In a recession, people are reluctant to make a change to other employers. But jobs are becoming available, at better pay, and people are responding," Lester said.
The American Staffing Association, the trade organization for the $61 billion industry of temporary and contract hiring, reports that national hiring in that category was up 13 percent in January over January 2010. One unusual aspect of this recovery, said the association's Reem El-Khatib, is the length of time it has taken employers to go from strictly contract hiring to the next plateau — contract hiring with an intent to add workers permanently. "But it's starting to happen now," El-Khatib said. It has worked out that way for Christopher Bigelow of Avon, Livingston County, an industrial and manufacturing engineer who was laid off in February 2009. At first, he was like many workers who suddenly find themselves unemployed, going after a permanent position. But once his severance pay was exhausted and Bigelow faced dipping into the family's savings, he seriously pursued contract work. He signed up with a temporary hiring agency in Erie County that works with manufacturers looking for temporary hires. "The businesses I talked to weren't in a position to make a long-term commitment," Bigelow said. "It was understandable from a business point of view. I was being told that the contract could be for as long as six months or for as little as three weeks." He took a contract position with a Buffalo company. There were no benefits, he took a 20 percent pay cut and he had a two-hour daily commute to Buffalo. "But it was good for me to get back to work, mentally and professionally," Bigelow said. "My engineering skills weren't being used." After four months, Bigelow was hired for a permanent job at Harris RF Communications in Rochester. He has health care coverage again and more stability, financially and personally. Proving oneself
Paul Allen of Rochester, an electrical technician, has been taking temp jobs off and on for four years. "It's a monumental decision for an employer to hire full time," he said. Tim Reed of Fairport said he has worked on a contract basis for many years. He said the pressure for temp workers to perform can be difficult. He gets his health care benefits through his wife's employment. "You come in and you have to prove yourself continually," he said. Tracey Aiello, a group leader at The August Group, a local networking organization that works with the unemployed, said about 20 percent of the jobs that August Group members landed last year were in temporary or contract work. He said he's now seeing the shift from the strict temporary job to the temp-to-permanent arrangement. "It's taken time," Aiello said. "There's been a lot of uncertainty about what government is going to do." Aiello said the hiring, both temporary and permanent, has been broad-based and not limited to one or two sectors. Jeanine Burgen, director of national accounts for Employee Relations Associates in Brighton, said the measured shift toward more permanent hiring has been evident since last year. "The temp jobs have been more on the lower levels," she said. "The next phase in hiring will be in more technical and professional jobs. We've been very busy, very active in direct hire."
To read article on Democrat & Chronicle website, please visit: http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20110220/BUSINESS/102200337/1001/business/Increase-temp-hiring-hopeful-signal?odyssey=nav%7Chead |