The Tempification of the American Workforce

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/5166/the_tempification_of_the_american_workforce/

Thursday November 12 10:54 am

By Lindsay Beyerstein

The tempification of the American workforce continues apace. While job losses make headlines, we don't hear as much about an equally insidious trend: real jobs with benefits are being replaced by "contracting opportunities" and temporary placements.

In October, the U.S. economy created 34,000 new temp jobs, while posting a net loss of 190,000 jobs. Some media reports have hailed local upticks in temporary employment as portents of an improving job market. The idea is that employers are using temporary workers until they feel secure enough in the recovery to hire full-time workes back.


June Beckman, a part-time worker with the cleaning contractor Scrub, cleans a window at O'Hare International Airport's Terminal 3 in Chicago, Ill. (Photo by Tim Boyle/Getty Images)


That's one hypothesis. The other possibility is that employers are ditching permanent employees and replacing them with long-term temps.

The great Perm to Temp shift didn't start yesterday. From 1969 to 1993, the number of part-time workers in the American workforce nearly doubled. This surge in part-time employment accounted for a quarter of all growth in the labor market. From 1982 to 1990, the payrolls of temp agencies grew ten times faster than the workforce as a whole. By 2005, contingent workers accounted for nearly a third of the U.S. workforce.

FULL story at link.

[thunder rising]

1. the U.S. economy created 34,000 ... 65,000 H1-B visas to be granted in Feb ... just say'n

[bridgit]

2. You are exactly correct, OS...

My husband and I are union members have been for years & years. But we also work as IC's. I post here after posting at union and career based sites where these matters are expressed by many...and in different ways

One such way they've been forcing wages down is to offer employ, then ask people to pass a background check that they themselves have to pay for. If in the event they are unable to 'pass', they re-offer the employ and 1/2 the original wage. Bait & Switch? Let me count those ways. One such company was a so-called 'green' company based in Massachusetts vying for market positioning. But if some companies want to be thought of as forward thinking 'green' people, they'd do better than to treat people like assets to be squeeze and tossed out

Many are offering employ, such as it is, but not telling anyone that the position is to be considered a 'triage event' at best, in that they are themselves behind and aren't willing to staff their own business model with concerned employees cause they don't give a shit

They have no intent to incur any employment costs; not 401K not EOSP not medical not vacation not sick leave not raises no nothing! but they are too chicken-shit to say as much up front