Temp jobs rose in March, according to the Bureau of Labor statistics. Year-over-year, the growth was 9.6 percent. This was the biggest increase since July 2012. According to the BLS, 2.06 percent of nonfarm workers are temporary contract workers.
The Wall Street Journal reports many experts believe temporary workers are here to stay due to shifts in the way companies hire employees. Many companies found it was less expensive but more efficient to hire temps to do work that had previously been the domain of fully-hired workers.
Companies as large as Wal-Mart and Amazon have been hiring temps, according to the Journal. Many temp jobs (40 percent) are in manufacturing positions rather than business or clerical work. According to Jennifer Little, businesses see hiring temps for manufacturing jobs is cost-effective because companies can grow and expand their workforce as necessary. Also, companies can avoid having to deal with all of the paperwork associated with taxes and insurance regulations.
Total employment in the economy rose by 192,000, according to the BLS. The total number of jobs in the U.S. is 137.9 million. According to CNN, the U.S. will need at least 5 million more jobs before it can call itself comfortably out of the recession.
