The American Staffing Agency recently reported that staffing companies in the United States employed an average of 2.8 million temporary and contract workers per day in 2011, the Columbus Dispatch reports. This is up 8 percent from 2010.
What's more, the news source states that the number of temp jobs available has risen steadily since bottoming out during the height of the recession in 2009. More temp jobs typically correspond to positive changes in nonfarm payrolls.
"Companies no longer look upon temporaries as a gap measure," said Kelly Services president and CEO Carl Camden, as quoted by the news source. "Now, the largest companies have a specific model of how much of their workforce is going to be temporary."
Camden added that he projects temp work in all industries will encompass more than 50 percent of all labor by 2020. He relates it to America's World War II days when the country was comprised of craftsmen, small business owners and farmers, and envisions a future where more Americans work for themselves.
A Harvard Business Review article by Washington Post columnist Matt Miller and his wife, Business Talent Group CEO Jody Greenstone Miller, predicts a similar future – only it's comprised of "supertemps," or top managers who choose to pursue project-based careers independent of major firms.
