Companies see Temps as Permanent Solution

Overall, temporary help payrolls are up by almost half a million since they bottomed out in September 2009, according to the department of Labor. Lots of companies are relying more than ever on temporary workers to fill their employment needs. In the past, the increase in the use of temporary workers indicated that it wouldn’t be long before we saw an increase in the permanent job market. In previous recessions, companies simply laid off workers and then hired them back again when the recession was over. Thing is, lots of businesses found that they just kept running into the same problems each time the economy ran into trouble.

Many analysts are predicting that we’re at the beginning of a permanent, structural shift towards temporary workers making up a large proportion of the labor force. Interestingly, whereas temporary job opportunities have previously been mostly light industrial or clerical in nature, this time around, jobs in Legal, IT and other professional industries are shifting towards a contract/freelance model as well.

Are employers wary of hiring full-time employees because of the uncertain economy? Most certainly. But they are also likely to be unwilling to commit to the seemingly never-ending hikes in health insurance costs too.

Hiring temporary workers is being increasingly seen by many as a cost-effective solution to a staffing problem, enabling companies to scale up or down quickly to meet demand without an enduring obligation to the temporary worker. However, navigating complex co-employment rules and the new stringent IRS 1099 classification requirements, means that employing temporary workers is becoming fraught with risk – for both the company working with the temporary workers and the staffing company who recruits the those workers.

Emergent can provide stable contingent workforce solutions that allow staffing companies and their clients to recruit workers, while Emergent takes care of the rest (including legal, payroll, invoicing, insurance, tax, HR and workers’ comp administration). To find out more, e-mail us at  info@emergent.com or visit us at www.emergent.com.