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Temporary workers to become 20 percent of workforce within 10 years

Posted on July 30th, 2014 Read time: 2 minutes

About a fifth of all employees are going to be temporary workers by 2022, according to a recent study by Pricewaterhouse Coopers, reported by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. This means that big changes are coming to human resources. PwC even went so far as to say HR is "at a crossroads." Most people don't want to work a nine-to-five job anymore. They want flexibility for their hours and the ability to take time off whenever they want. Becoming a contract worker is one way to aim in this direction. Employees can choose who they work for and how long they work. They can choose their hours and even, to a certain extent, the tasks they're willing to do. This level of customization isn't available to typical permanent workers, and HR will have to adapt.

About a third of the HR companies that PwC spoke with about this topic said they were beginning to change their strategies to start hiring more temps.

Temporary workers are in demand
A recent blog by Staffing Industry Analysts professional Subadhra Sriram spoke to this. She says that staffing firms are no longer in a phase where companies don't know what they do or how they work. Companies have finally begun to understand that temps offer services just as good as permanent employees at a lower cost and with more flexibility. This puts power in the hands of the staffing industries and the temps who work for them.

The tide is shifting. Staffing companies will soon become as big in the imagination of typical workers as major companies, and people will compete to hire the temporary services firm that lends its workers to Google, for example, according to Sriram. Workers will benefit from becoming more competitive in this new market.

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