Another sign of economic spring

April 15, 2010
Back to TopCommentsE-mailPrint

A smidgeon of good news has been buried in local job numbers for the past couple of months, and maybe, just maybe, we’ll see a full-throated trend developing when March figures are released Friday.

Temporary workers are being called back. January was the first month since February 2008 when more temps were on the job in the Indianapolis area than in the same month a year earlier, and February repeated the performance. The upswing started at the state level a month earlier.

Manufacturers, warehouses and other industries like hiring temps because they can unload them quickly if the economic recovery falters. Permanent manufacturing workers who survived the recession have been racking up overtime for a few months, and bringing in temps is the next step before resorting to permanent hires.

Don’t mistake the temp uptick as anything huge. There were only 29,400 of them on the job locally in February, the fewest for the month since 2004.

But it’s improvement.

Any thoughts about temp workers? They occasionally complain they’re not treated the same as permanent employees. Would you agree?
 

ADVERTISEMENT
  • Treatment of Temps
    StafferApril 15, 2010 3:19 PM
    Temps are treated differently than full time employees for two very different reasons. The first reason is that they are not employees of the company on whose property they work, they are employees of the staffing company. Legal obligations around co-employment prevent treating temps and FTEs the same.

    The second reason is unfortunate and the reason for stigmas that have been created over the years. Many FTEs feel threatened by talented temporary staff and therefore make sure they put the "temps" in their place. They take every chance they get to remind the temps that they can't go to company outings, take paid vacation, etc. This is unfortunate and not common, but it happens and we prefer not to partner with these companies for that obvious reason. Temporary employees are a great way to augment your staff or ease the burden on HR to find niche employees. Everyone has been talking about "outsourcing" and how that is a great strategy to grow your business and pay for only what you need for short projects. Hiring temporary employees can provide this same kind of benefit, we are just waiting for everyone to realize it.
    Reply to CommentFlag Comment

Post a comment to this blog

COMMENTS POLICY
We reserve the right to remove any post that we feel is obscene, profane, vulgar, racist, sexually explicit, abusive, or hateful.
 
You are legally responsible for what you post and your anonymity is not guaranteed.
 
Posts that insult, defame, threaten, harass or abuse other readers or people mentioned in IBJ editorial content are also subject to removal. Please respect the privacy of individuals and refrain from posting personal information.
 
No solicitations, spamming or advertisements are allowed. Readers may post links to other informational websites that are relevant to the topic at hand, but please do not link to objectionable material.
 
We may remove messages that are unrelated to the topic, encourage illegal activity, use all capital letters or are unreadable.
 

Messages that are flagged by readers as objectionable will be reviewed and may or may not be removed. Please do not flag a post simply because you disagree with it.

ADVANCED SEARCH
Sponsored by
ADVERTISEMENT

  1. These higher rates Co. e about only because physicians are now hospital employees. otherwise physicians couldn't charge these rates and share the windfall with the hospital. Community/rural hospitals probably not buying physicians practices and thus weren't getting the windfall anyway.

  2. The incentive for poor people to get themselves off public assistance and "no longer be poor" is even with help...they're STILL POOR! Being poor, even with some assistance, isn't all that pleasant. (I speak from experience) It's a stubborn myth that poor people, who are on public assistance, are sitting in the lap of luxury. You should try living on just those "freebies" that you mentioned and see how meager they actually are. By the way, I didn't mean you had to buy/own a puppy...just pet one. :)

  3. As near as I can tell the minority has ZERO constitutional obligation to offer a quorum to the majority. A requirement for quorum was inserted into the constitution so that tyrannical majorities could not simply shove through odious and objectionable legislation (which is exactly what they did.) By allowing a tyrannical majority to charge fines against the minority for exercising their constitutional prerogative to deny quorum the court as made a mockery of constitutional governance in the state of Indiana.

  4. The voters elected the Reps to make a vote not walk out on the vote. They had to the right to exercise their opinion and vote "no" to the bill. Let me ask you this if you walked out of your job for 5 straight weeks would you get paid? Would you even have a job to go back to? If any elected official walks out on the people they should be arrested for stealing tax dollars from the public. They were elected to do a job and not leave when the job gets stuff.

  5. I have been to several of their locations in Pennsylvania and always go in for 1 item and leave with a basket full of things. I'm very happy they decided on Indiana, now if only they would put the other store in eastside.

ADVERTISEMENT