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America's Second-largest Employer Is a Temp Agency
cold fjord writes "From the Examiner: '...the second-largest employer in America is Kelly Services, a temporary work provider. ... part-time jobs are at an all-time high, with 28 million Americans now working part-time. ... There are now a record number of Americans with temporary jobs. Approximately 2.7 million, in fact. And the trend has been growing. ... Temp jobs made up about 10 percent of the jobs lost during the Great Recession, but now make up a tenth of the jobs in the United States. In fact, nearly one-fifth of all jobs gained since the recession ended have been temporary.' The NYT has a chart detailing the problem."
Employers are afraid to commit and invest in their employees any more. I worked at a call center that was a "temp-to-hire" once - they had around 50 full time employees, including the 20-odd folks in management. Another 100 were temp workers who were brought in, worked to the bone until they burned out, then let go. The highest performers (read: the people who didn't screw up) were offered full time positions with the company, or promotions. The need for this could have been alleviated with better training, but training employees is expensive. Better to hire a lot of them short term through a temp agency, see which ones fit in, and just let the others go, in a constant pattern of churn.
I quit that place despite being one of the rare full timers, because I decided I'd much rather work on computers directly than just talk to people about them.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
No, they'll just all follow suit with Wal Mart and make sure nobody ever gets enough hours to tip over that threshold.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Yes, having the 2nd largest employer in the country be a temp service speaks volumes about the alleged recovery and job market.
The first-largest is Wal Mart, which is pretty much the same, and horrible.
(2.2 million employees, 1.3 mill in the USA)
Yet curiously omitted from the figures?
Total number of US government employees? 2.8 million.
Total local/state employees? 19-some million.
So ~20 million people in this country get their paycheck from the government....that's what, about 7% of the entire electorate owes their income to the gubbermint? One might argue that due to a clear conflict of interest, they perhaps shouldn't get votes.
Some people would say that's even MORE revealing about the US (so called), not to mention the tendentiousness of the reporting on the story that it's NOT EVEN MENTIONED.
-Styopa
No doubt. Legitimate users of 1099s are competent, top of their field people. Obviously _you've_ never seen one.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
And, temp can mean anything
Temp only means one thing, "we're cheating you out of benefits".
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Mod parent up. The intended effect was to give minimum wage employees free healthcare but the actual affect is to reduce their hours from 40 hrs a week + overtime to a strict less than 30 hours a huge paycut for a group that was living pay check to pay check as it was.
It's all for naught anyways. Our population and technology has out paced job growth. We need to realize there simply wont be any more jobs for the majority of the population as time marches forward. Unions wont matter, free markets wont matter. The only thing that will matter is how governments will deal with rationing out services to their population. Eventually everything will just be entirely automated, so we will have to deal with a lot of free time to continue our educations and explore the world. Stuff like arguing over unions, capitalism, socialism is pointless. We're on the cusp of it all being entirely irrelevant.
In fact, nearly one-fifth of all jobs gained since the recession ended have been temporary.'
What in the what? I'd REALLY like to see a source on that, given that it's directly contradicted by the BLS.
http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cpsatab9.htm
Since the job market bottomed, we've created 5.4 million full-time jobs and 600,000 part-time jobs. How is that "nearly one-fifth"?
Everything is better with chainsaws.
Companies shouldn't have to worry about providing insurance to workers, regardless. They should be able to focus on the cost of running their business with static expenses. Countries like Denmark has some of the highest individual entrepreneurship rates in the world. Why? Because the government takes care of providing health care to everyone, as well as all schooling through college. Obviously these are all funded through higher tax rates, but it leaves a lot of unknown headaches from businesses and manages to provide everyone an opportunity to succeed.
Agreed.
Single-payer health care would definitely be a way to fix this.
People have been predicting the wealth economy for some time, but have no clear plan on how to transition to that model.
Here's an opportunity: redefine "full time" to be less than 40 hours. Our productivity is now so high that fewer people need to work, but at the same time we need to employ everyone in order to prevent unrest and revolt.
Productivity is high, so we should have more leisure time. GDP per capita has skyrocketed, it's doubled since about 1990, and the average citizen would get $40,000 per year if output was distributed evenly. That's every man, woman and child - employed or not, and every year.
Corporations have to start spending money on the people instead of cutting people out of production. Better educated workers, happier workers, healthier workers make your business stronger and give better return on investment than rehiring. Much better return than "cost accounting", which aims to make the cheapest product people can tolerate.
Government has to start rerouting wealth from businesses to the people, by way of infrastructure benefits. Free health care and free education, as well as infrastructure projects (national system of renewable power generation, universal internet service, &c) enrich the population without coddling to the lazy.
Production is met by an ever-dwindling need for human interaction. We should embrace this trend in a way that doesn't require armed revolt.
Russell called it a long time ago, and look at where we are now. Sometimes I wonder if we'll really transition to a post-consumerist, post-scarcity society, like Paul Fernhout often describes here, or if we'll keep endlessly inventing jobs and functions that do not add to our lives but are infinitely scalable as long as at least two parts are fueling the market in opposite ways, like advertising, laywering, pateting, lobbying etc.
Then all the liberals start whining about how "unfair" it is that employers try to save their businesses by not incurring new taxes
Yeah, because it's just oh so great that the businesses are "saved" by pissing on their employees and not providing them with adequate health care coverage.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
‘Bingo’: Iowahawk sums up the jobs report in one tweet about Taco Bell
David Burge @iowahawkblog
Unemployment report in a nutshell: the Taco Bell that had 30 40 hour workers now has 40 30 hour workers.
Behind the Dismal Jobs Numbers: The ‘New’ Economy Takes Shape
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Speaking of workers rights... Can anyone explain to me why "Computer Professionals" are specifically exempted from overtime pay? Why is my overtime less valuable than someone else's overtime?
Let me guess: Is it because some large IT firm slipped substantial campaign contributions to the right legislative whores?
Love sees no species.
Actually, I'd argue that not many people thought that so many employers are immoral shit-sucking assholes who'd intentionally try to screw their employees out of health care. I would never imagined that any business would publicly announce they're trying to fuck over their employees. I'm shocked, quite frankly, at hearing so many businesses declare that they are, in fact, run by immoral fucktards who not only couldn't give two shits about their employees, but actually see no problem with it.
- An employer who pays for health insurance for all of his employees
I don't respond to AC's.
I think this article is exactly about my primary concern with the idea of a return to manufacturing in the US. Most people think China and Mexico's big advantage is cheap labor. But manufacturing's been in my family for a long time and many of my relatives run large plants. The hourly wage of the employees is a factor, but not nearly as important as many people think. The real problem is being able to scale operations up and down quickly. Can I hire 500 people and have them on the line within a month? Equally, can I let go 500 people just as fast? In mexico and china you certainly can. And with the size of their operations there they might be able to shift those people over to something else. In the US with all of our labor laws you can't do that sort of thing quickly and the loss of even a small contract for a manufacturing plant has devastating repercussions on the floor, with salesman scrambling to find new work quickly. Then when you're at your peak you're turning down contracts for fear of employing too many and having to let them go later. I'm not suggesting that or labor laws are bad on the whole, they are good for society just bad for manufacturing plants.
In most countries the number of birth/1000 is decreasing and it appears to be tightly coupled with the economic state of each country. In addition, there is nothing new about humans being replaced by machines (Farmers, phone operations, lumber cutting...). It has been happening since before the 1800 yet we live hundreds of times better than they did in the 1800. Human kind has a way of making it work out. As long as we keep working on world issues we will make it.
Yes, that's why it originated from that well-known Republican state, Massachusetts.
No, it originated with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
An individual mandate to purchase insurance is indeed just about the only possible way to try to awkwardly cram "free marketness" onto health insurance.
Completely false. Obamacare was passed with Dems having a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and having control of the House. If they wanted single-payer, they would have made single-payer. They wanted Obamacare instead, as a hand-out to their friends in the health care industry.
You're mistakenly conflating Democrats with Liberals. There are many Democrats in tossup districts, who probably figured it would be better to fix healthcare with Republican ideas, so as to fend off challenges by Republican rivals. What Democrats probably didn't count on was that the Republican base is so incredibly ignorant, that they could be trivially reprogrammed to think what were once their own party's market-driven, individual-responsibility policies are now radical socialist handouts to slackers.
A temp service isn't much different than a union. They take a cut of your wages to negotiate for you and handle discipline for the contracting company. The only difference is they have a vested interest in seeing you get ripped off andv have no accountability to their workforce
So why do most of the other countries in the developed world, that do have universal health care, deliver better overall health care outcomes for 60% less (10% of GDP) than the current US system (16% of GDP)?
Careful, the cognitive dissonance cause by the sudden introduction of "facts and figures" can be injurious to an ideologue's brain.
Fuck the "job creators". They've had tax cuts for 10+ years now, so where are the goddamn jobs? According to conservative orthodoxy, low taxes on the rich somehow create jobs, but it sure looks like they lied to us.
I completely agree. Obamacare is very business unfriendly. A Canadian style system where the employer bears no specific responsibility because healthcare is paid out of general taxes would be much more business friendly. Toyota, for one, certainly thought so when a major reason they put a plant in Canada instead of the US was Canadian healthcare. Republicans should also value maximizing the benefit for the money spent, and Canadian healthcare, which costs only 2/3 of the US, certainly qualifies as a savings.
So why aren't Republicans, with their concerns for business friendliness and cost effectiveness, pushing for Canadian style healthcare? It's an obvious win-win.
why do most of the other countries in the developed world, that do have universal health care, deliver better overall health care outcomes for 60% less
Because they pay their doctors less. When government is the primary employer or leading negotiator with physicians, they can't bargain much.
But of course doctors in those other countries do sometimes go on strike.
Unfortunately, those ideas had to be included to appease Democrats from more conservative districts.
This idea that things were included to "appease districts" doesnt make sense since "we have to pass it in order to find out whats in it."
The people did not know what was in it when it was passed. Not only was no attempt made to "appease districts", there was a clear plan to intentionally keep people uninformed about it.
Clearly the Democrats were trying to appease their campaign donors, not their districts. Yes, thats the insurance companies.
"His name was James Damore."
Well said. I currently work in the identical situation Charliemopps describes. Well, scaled down a bit. We had a huge order of machines that needed to be built IN ADDITION to our normal, busy floor schedule in 2011. Almost killed us. Temp salaries exceeded the "house" salary, and don't get me started on the overtime. Wouldn't happen many other places. Our 140 person shop became 210 for several months. Now, we're down to @100 FTE's. I agree, there are more ways to look at this problem. And I'm a liberal!
It has nothing to do with "your time" it has to do with being on your feet and doing physical labor for 60hrs+, the physical toll that has on the body and trying to discourage employers from scheduling those kinds of shifts by making it cheaper to hire more people instead. Lastly, your employer isn't required to pay you overtime or give you comp time, but they certainly can if they so choose. Mine does. It's up to you to chose a job that fits your lifestyle. You have a white-collar job even if you don't really believe it. The people doing the manual labor in this country need special protections that you and I do not. What you and I find irritating, may injure or even kill someone working in a factory.
If only the employers hadn't been dicks and cut hours, then the whole thing would be working as advertised. But the capitalists are experts at optimizing profit at the expense of everything else. It's that attitude that broke the country. It will never recover, the only question is how soon it will fall, and how quickly to recover after (and who it will take with it).
Learn to love Alaska
Done both, the food service industry and computer hacking. 16 hours a day on your feet in the food service industry takes a severe toll on your body.
On the other hand, 16+ hours a day, for months or years on end, writing software is just plain lethal. Anybody telling you different is lying! Between the lack of decent food, the inability to shop for groceries, the chronic starvation, the chronic sleep deprivation to the point of hallucinations, the destruction of my body's immune system... It's a really bad deal.
Sad thing is, I found I could take a desk job as a security guard and make more money than writing software. I needed two jobs, but I work far fewer hours than I used to and it's all just sitting around reading books.
Welcome to America.
My brother retired from a supermarket where he was the meat market manager. About 6 months later he found himself sitting on the couch gaining weight and decided to get a job to have something to do. He got a part time job at another store and worked there about a year before quitting. The reason? His part time job went from 30 hours a week to 60. They were working him to death and he couldn't get them to let him take time off. He had to quit to go fishing.
If you think Obama is a D I have some swampland in Florida you might be interested in, what we have is simply Bush's third and fourth term which is how those at the top wanted it to go.
I mean do you honestly think its a coincidence that Obama supported every jack booted policy that Bush supported, increased spying, increased drone strikes, and pretty much ended up more right wing than the right wing itself? He cashed the check and read from the cue card just like the last guy and the guy before that and so on for several decades now.
There is a REASON why no matter who is in the white house Goldman Sachs is running the fed, why a handful of guys on Wall Street can gamble like its Las Vegas and when they lose we get told they're "too big to fail" and why no matter who you vote for things NEVER get better, only worse. If you honestly and truly believe the right wing gives a flying piss about you when you are not one of the 0.01% I hate to break the news to ya, but they don't and neither does the so called "left".
Every time i see a rant like yours I'm reminded of the late great Bill Hicks "Well I believe the puppet on the left shares MY beliefs! Well I believe the puppet on the right has MY interests at heart....hey wait a minute, there is one guy working both puppets!". There is a reason why all empires fall friend and you are seeing it right before your eyes, those at the top always become too greedy and tilt things so badly out of alignment that the whole thing comes crashing down.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Link
You're not a person. You're not an employee. You're not even worthy of respect.
I know this will not be a popular opinion here - and I will likely be moderated into oblivion for even daring to suggest it on this right-leaning site - but seriously a single-payer healthcare system could do a lot to resolve this problem. There are a large number of people in this country who seek out full-time work not because they want to work 40 hours or because they even want to live the lifestyle of a full-timer, but because it is the only way to get health care (and don't try to claim that the health insurance bailout act called "obamacare" changes this in a meaningful way, because it really doesn't). There are plenty of people who would take a 25% pay cut to work 30 hours if they could still get health care, but the vast majority of employers in this country won't allow it. There are others who would work fewer hours and then take the time difference to pursue an education or vocational training (and are hence instead stuck in a dead end position because they have lost that flexibility). There are even some who would take two part-time jobs to accommodate their scheduling needs, but again can't do it because of health care.
These people won't be served by the current system, or any system that has been proposed in the past two decades. These people would also make jobs available by leaving full time positions, which would help those who seek full-time employment currently.
But instead our "main stream media" has told us such things are "un-American" and "communist". Why will we never get single-payer health care in the US? The same reason we'll never get solar power or a manned mission to Mars; people make more money on the current system than changing it to anything else.
I've already put on my fucking asbestos. Flame away.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.