Wall Street Journal (04/07/14) Damian Paletta

Government data show that more than one-tenth of job growth since 2009 is tied to temporary jobs, and ASA corporate partner CareerBuilder says that figure is more than 50% in cities like Cincinnati and Milwaukee and close to 100% in Stockton, CA. While the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 2.8 million people currently hold temporary positions, ASA estimates that around 11 million people had a temporary job at some point last year.

“We do not see this as an indicator that we are at a ‘peak’ economy,” says Jeffrey Joerres, chief executive of ManpowerGroup. “We rather see it as more of a structural or secular change, that our industry will be absorbing more of the workforce than it did in the past.” Jim Link, chief human resources officer at Randstad North America says “lessons learned from a tough recession” are driving the increase in temporary employees.