IES Blog

Temporary workers gaining ground in growing economy

Posted on June 10th, 2014 Read time: 2 minutes

The latest Manpower Employment Outlook Survey demonstrates hiring confidence is up. In a survey of over 18,000 employers, 22 percent expect to increase their staff levels for the third quarter of 2014. Seventy-one percent expect to keep their staffing at the same level, and only 7 percent either don't know what they're going to do or plan to reduce their staff levels.  Last quarter, 19 percent of respondents had planned to increase their staff levels.

This increase is reflected in the latest report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which reports there were 4.5 million job openings on the last business day in April. This is an increase from 4.2 million in March, a major sign companies are starting to hire.

Expanded job openings are great news for staffing companies, because hiring a temporary worker is an excellent way to expand a business without breaking the bank. Another option is to hire a payroll outsourcing service, which will streamline a business, allowing it to expand further.

A blog on Staffing Industry Analysts reports the fastest growing segment in temporary staffing is the education and library segment, which demonstrated growth of 12 percent. In another survey, also referenced in the blog post, it was found companies are becoming more welcoming of contingent workers.

The factors that have most motivated companies to try hiring from a employer of record or similar company is the way workers can be loaded and unloaded dynamically, which means companies can go with the flow. Additionally, there is lower risk with the "try before you buy" approach to hiring workers, and finally, because companies lately have been expanding so quickly they need to hire temp workers just to keep up with increasing work loads.

In general, since the recession, more temporary workers have been coming into the workplace, according to the blog story.

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