The technical temp may or may not hold an academic degree, but through job experience or life skills has acquired a particular job related talent that benefits from the temp's knowledge. Examples are systems analysts, computer software architects, information system and computer consultants, computer programmers, graphic artists, and technical writers.
Professional, executive, and technical temps make up almost one fourth of the temporary workforce, according to the National Association of Temporary and Staffing Services (NATSS). This segment is expected to remain the fastest growing segment of the staffing industry. What that means to you, the professional technical temp, is that now is an opportune time for you to enter the world of temping.
Why Do Businesses Use Temps?
The workforce has changed over the past 20 years. Few workers spend their lives at the same company anymore, and companies are quicker to downsize at the first sign of problems. These changes are because of growth, downsizing, buyouts, takeovers, technology, people living and working longer, and companies going out of business.
What does this mean to you? It means more and more people have to be flexible to work. Companies must be more flexible to hire good people. Not everything is a nine-to-five job, and there is no security in the job market as there was in the past. Being a good employee and being loyal will not guarantee job security.
Businesses still need to get the work done. They want to cut their costs and not be responsible for the financial security of all of their workers. So they turn to staffing services to provide the workers.
History of the Temporary Employment Industry
Years ago temporary staffing services were called for primarily office jobs. These jobs were mostly secretarial in nature and were predominately filled by women. These temps were homemakers who did not want to work full-time outside the home or mothers who were reentering the workforce after spending time at home raising their children. Other temps were people between jobs who used temporary work to make money until they found another job. Still other temps were people who were new to a community and wanted to work temp while they looked for a permanent position.
Temporary staffing services sent these temps to businesses both large and small who needed secretaries for one day or several weeks. Occasionally businesses hired these temps because they were in the job when there was a full-time opening and the temp was in the right place at the right time.
As the workforce and businesses changed, the type of people who temped changed. People with skills that were not secretarial started temping. More men started temping. Computers changed the way office work was done, and people who had capabilities other than the traditional secretarial skills entered the temp workforce.
The temporary employment business has grown as a result. Companies save money by using temps. The companies that contract with staffing services do not have to provide for temps what they must provide for permanent employees, like health insurance, vacation pay, and retirement programs.
What Is a Staffing Service?
For the purposes of this book, a temporary employment service will be called a staffing service. A staffing service is defined as a company that recruits people (temporaries) who are looking for work, and then places them in temporary part-time or full-time jobs.
Those who work for the staffing service are called temporary employees or, out there in the job world, temps.
In my hometown there are more than 70 companies listed in the yellow pages under the heading of employment services/staffing services. Many of these staffing services specialize in areas like general office, clerical, legal, accounting, sales, engineering, medical, industrial, warehouse, or factory placement.
Why Use a Staffing Service?
People sign up or register with a service to find a temporary or permanent job and get paid. A staffing service will do the work of finding the job for the people who temp for them. This saves people the time of going out and finding a job themselves.
What kind of jobs do temps do? A person can work temp in many capacities in many types of environments. For instance, in an office temps can do everything from programming computers, to supervising an accounting division, to managing projects, to acting as the temporary CEO! The days when a temp did only the work no one else wanted to do or was limited to strictly secretarial work are gone.
Temping is a great way to get your foot in the door of many companies, gain experience, and get paid while you are doing it.
