IES Blog

Temporary labor bill rates rise in second quarter

Posted on July 8th, 2011 Read time: 1 minutes

It should come as no surprise that as the economy continues to fluctuate, businesses are turning to contract workers to maintain flexibility in their workforces and budgets.

In fact, IQNavigator's IQNdex, a tool which analyzes contract worker trends, found that temporary labor bill rates increased during the first two months of the second quarter of 2011. The IQNdex has increased for the past seven months, following declining rates during the financial crisis that began in 2008.

The IQNdex also revealed that not all workers or skill sets are valued equally. Jobs that merge business and technical acumen tend to command a higher rate than those that are solely focused on IT development and operations.

"The use of non-employee labor has grown rapidly in the U.S. in recent years as companies rely more heavily on temporary workers, contractors, freelancers and other contingent labor to quickly adjust their labor force and cost structure in response to changing business conditions," the company said in a statement.

More Americans may turn to outsourcing agencies to secure temporary work as the job market continues to lose ground. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment rose in June to 9.2 percent – the highest it's been since last September.

Related Articles