Get used to temporary: Contract hiring set to grow in 2011

[unhappycamper]

Get used to temporary: Contract hiring set to grow in 2011
By Dianne Stafford | Kansas City Star
Posted on Thursday, December 30, 2010

Welcome to the "adhocratic" work force.

Not familiar with that term?

It describes an evolution in the job market: As the economy recovers from the recession, more and more workers in the 2011 labor force will be hired on an ad hoc basis, teaming up in work groups created for a specific reason for a specific period of time.

"And we'll see even more of this in the future simply because it's enabled through technology and the kind of work we do," says Brian Mennecke, a management information systems professor at Iowa State University.

"Spot markets for labor will be more common because the type of work people do now is often very fluid. Companies need the right labor at the right time."

[LARED]

1. Already happening in the Eng consultancy world

Our office is staffed with about 30% full time temps right now. Three years ago there was zero people hired like this.

[BlueJazz]

3. Yep...more and more of my customers (I'm a MCSE) are hiring people on a "Trial" basis,,

...(so to say)...No benefits, no kindness, no nothing....just work slaves...Disgusting.

[Hugin]

2. I think they used to call this "Hot Bunking".

Oh, wait... No that's a phrase used by Hookers.

No need to pay benefits for the temps.

[elocs]

4. I got the best job of my working career through temping,

a union job with the Teamsters at a distribution warehouse. The Union allowed the company to hire temps when very busy, but if the temps were there too long there was the strong suggestion that maybe it was time to hire another full time employee.

My experience with temping has been positive and has given me the opportunity to be hired full time. Like dating before marriage, it gives both sides a chance to know the other before making a more long term commitment. I will likely be temping again next month.

[ejpoeta]

7. if that were what they were doing it would be fine. but that is not what they are doing.

and i don't think it's new. my husband worked temp for a company for almost a year. there was another guy who had been a temp there for 18 months.

[elocs]

9. Most places where I have temped I would have been able to get hired

within months. Temping can be abused, but I have had good luck with it and will do it again. At least with temping I can get working right away and I am doing something.

[Larkspur]

5. That's been my job since July 2009

but I do get some health benefits. They aren't great but they are better than nothing. My contract is at 3 month intervals and fortunately, mine has been extended now through March 2011. My current bosses would like to get my full-time position reinstated but the Systems group is in a non-hiring freeze and have been laying off older employees since I was laid off in 2008.

[area51]

6. The reason why we'll see more of this in the future

is due to offshoring, inshoring, and overpopulation.

[sendero]

8. Yep..

.. that's the only kind of job my wife could get.

Fortunately, they like her a lot and will probably offer her a regular position.

I have mixed feelings about it all. I can see why employers like it, as many kinds of jobs are "task" oriented, and once the "task" is completed there might not be anything else for the employee to do.

OTOH, it is easily abused by allowing employers to never pay anyone benefits.

For some kinds of work, there is an intermediary that you are actually employed by and who provides benefits. This is also a popular model.

Long story short - if you are a high performer this new mode of working is not likely to affect you much, if not it is easy for a company to dump you now.

[badtoworse]

10. It's way better than not working at all.

I was hired in March as a contractor and the company brought me in as a regular employee (i.e. with full benefits) in July. A good friend of mine has been working as a consultant for the last 10 years. He's had some lean years, but he's also had some pretty rich ones. Overall, he's doing OK, but health insurance is costly.

I may be back to contracting in 2011 - the company is moving to Houston and I don't want to relocate.

[Ruby the Liberal]

11. With no benefits. Yeah - real shock that this is the trend.