| BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : FEBRUARY 21, 2000 ISSUE | ||||||||
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| ECONOMIC TRENDS
The Temp Surge Isn't Temporary Most industries are tapping the pool Since the early 1980s, the U.S. temporary help industry has been on a roll, tripling the number of workers on its payrolls in the last 10 years alone. Although the industry employed 2% of the nation's workers in 1997, it accounted for fully 10% of employment growth between 1991 and 1997. Some observers have theorized that this increase reflected the changing employment patterns of a few industries. But a recent study based on government data by Marcello Estevao of the Federal Reserve and Saul Lach of Hebrew University in Jerusalem finds that the use of temps supplied by outside agencies has risen in most major industries--with the exception of the public sector. Their analysis indicates that governments and public enterprises employed 40% of all such temps in 1982 but a negligible number by 1997. By contrast, the percent of the temporary help industry's workforce used by manufacturing companies tripled between 1987 and 1997, to 30%. And the demand for temps by the service sector also rose substantially, to about 45% of the total. In addition, a lot more blue-collar workers and male workers entered temporary help industry ranks. The implications of this shift for the manufacturing industry are particularly interesting. According to the researchers, it helps explain the apparent flatness of factory employment in the 1990s. And it suggests that the average annual increase in manufacturing productivity would be about half a percentage point smaller than reported--if the hours put in by workers on temp-industry payrolls were factored in. By GENE KORETZ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP |
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