Inside Job Numbers: Temporary Jobs Count

[whatthehey]

1. Sure they count. Why shouldn't they? They actually declined slightly this month BTW.

The twenty five year trend pretty much matches total employment though; steady gains when overall jobs rise and drops when overall jobs drop.

Other interesting points:

Temp workers are about 2% of the labor force (a touch under now), same as they were in 2000.

Temp workers are NOT counted as manufacturing sector workers even though about 1/3 work in production (temp workers aren't in any other sector either, they have their own).

About 70% of temps are eventually hired by one of their temporary employers (the obverse stat often quoted that only 6-7% of temp jobs leads to a job offer is not a refutation of this, as it looks at discrete assignments not temp workers. The whole point of temp work assumes multiple assignments are the norm).