Florida Today (FL) (01/01/12) Peterson, Patrick

According to the American Staffing Association, 74% of job seekers look for full-time employment by first working as temporary employees. Also, 72% of temporary employees surveyed by ASA corporate partner CareerBuilder.com said they found permanent jobs with the employer with which they initially performed temporary work.

“What we have seen is that those positions lead to full-time roles,” says Bill Peppler, managing partner at Kavaliro Staffing Services in central Florida. Surveys show that temporary positions lead to a full-time job nearly three-fourths of the time. “The first people they go to are the people who have worked for them in the past,” Peppler adds.

Investor’s Business Daily (01/03/12)

U.S. chief financial officers polled by professional services firm Tatum see part-time hiring as a trend that will help companies in 2012. Temporary hiring is described by financial executives as a way to retain flexibility while pursuing growth, a sign that temporary employment might become the new norm.

Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel (01/01/2012) Schmid, John

In a recent survey by the QPS Employment Group—a staffing and recruiting firm based in Brookfield, Wis.—41% of companies polled plan to add hires in the first quarter of 2012, up from 39% in the final quarter of 2011. The survey presents a January-March outlook of the state’s major industries. “In comparison to the fourth quarter of 2011, employers are slightly more optimistic when it comes to business conditions and hiring trends,” QPS says in its analysis of its data.

The survey is considered a bellwether because it offers a measure of industrial sentiment in an industrial region, and because the firm specializes in industrial and manufacturing trades. Nearly all of the 184 employers that it surveyed are from Wisconsin manufacturers, with a few from Illinois.

Seeking Alpha (01/01/12) Stewart, Hale

The ASA Staffing Index rose by one to 93 last week, though it will likely decline in the next couple of weeks due entirely to seasonality. The index is now equal to last year’s levels, after stagnating earlier this year.

Other recent indicators for the job market have been positive as well, including the Daily Treasury Statement showing that withholding for the first 19 days of December stood at $144.2 billion vs. $143.7 billion a year ago. For the last 20 reporting days, $151.8 billion was collected vs. $147.0 billion a year ago, a gain of 3.3%. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, meanwhile, reported that the four-week average of jobless claims declined to 375,000, the lowest level in more than three years. Seasonality is still significant, but even if the numbers are slightly overcompensating for seasonal factors, the author notes the trend remains very good.

Reuters (01/03/12)

Adecco announced on Jan. 3 that it will buy Japan-based VSN Inc. for an enterprise value of 90 million euros ($116.8 million) to double its exposure to professional staffing services in the world’s second-largest staffing market. Adecco, which competes with Manpower Inc. and Dutch group Randstad Holding NV, has seen its general staffing business continue to outpace its more lucrative professional staffing business in recent quarters, which has weighed on margins. “The deal makes sense from a strategic point of view and will add some 11% to 12% to Adecco Japan revenues, but less than 1% to group sales,” Vontobel analyst Michael Foeth said in a note. VSN Inc. is focused on the engineering sector.