It's official: Second largest employer in US is a temp agency
The administration can be proud of its performance in creating jobs. The jobs report released last Friday show a couple of significant records that no other administration in history can match.
Behind Wal-Mart, the second-largest employer in America is Kelly Services, a temporary work provider.
Friday's disappointing jobs report showed that part-time jobs are at an all-time high, with 28 million Americans now working part-time. The report also showed another disturbing fact: There are now a record number of Americans with temporary jobs.
Approximately 2.7 million, in fact. And the trend has been growing.
In the first quarter of 2013, U.S. staffing companies employed an average of 2.86 million temporary and contract workers, or 2 percent of all non-farm employment in the United States, according to the American Staffing Association. This represents a 2.9 percent growth from the same period in 2012. For just the month of June, there was a 6.7 percent growth in the number of staffing jobs than last year.
Temp jobs made up about 10 percent of the jobs lost during the Great Recession, and because of high turnover (the average length of temp employment is 3 months before a worker moves on to a permanent job), one in 10 non-farm workers were employed by a US staffing firm at some point during the past year, according to ASA. In fact, nearly one-fifth of all jobs gained since the recession ended have been temporary.
Meanwhile, another 240,000 full time jobs were lost.
Can you blame businesss? I don't see how. What possible incentive do they have to hire a full time worker unless they are desperate? What the geniuses at the White House haven't quite figured out yet is that businesses are in business to make a profit. The administration appears to see business as an extension of their permanent campaign and should add full time staff to make them look good.
Obama has been talking a good game when it comes to jobs since he took office. But his policies - especially Obamacare - have actually created disincentives for businesses to hire full time help.
It will go down in history as one of the great ironies.