Lately, we have been noticing a growing trend. Contract job orders are increasing. Technical hiring managers are telling us that they are having trouble meeting project deadlines and they are reaching out to us for qualified technical professionals to meet short-term needs. Temporary employees have historically been hired to assist employers to meet business demands yet allow the employer to avoid the cost of hiring a permanent employee. Often, it is the expectation of the employer that if the temporary employee is successful, the temporary employee will be hired.
Recently, the number of IT workers grew at a pace faster than the national jobs rate, and better than many other sectors, including healthcare. Temp, however, grew faster than all but two other sectors tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
TechServe Alliance, the national trade association of the IT and engineering staffing industry, reports IT employment grew 3.2% from June 2013 to June 2014, adding 144,200 workers. The Alliance says there were 4,664,800 IT jobs as of last month.
Engineering jobs also increased, the Tech Alliance said, but at a slower pace. From June to June, engineering jobs increased 1.8% to 2,506,300.
Nationally, the economy added 2.495 million jobs since June 2013, a growth rate of 1.83% on a seasonally adjusted basis. Private sector jobs increased 2.13%.
On a percentage basis, temp employment was among the fastest growing sectors tracked by the BLS. Ranking third, temp workers increased 216,000 to 2.87 million in June 2014, for an 8.4% increase.
The fastest growing sector — and at 209,200 workers, one of the smallest — was the “Other information services” category. Composed mostly of news syndicates, libraries, archives, exclusive Internet publishing and/or broadcasting, and web search portals, according to the BLS, the subsector grew 8.45% on a year-over-year basis.
Residential construction, which went from 610,000 jobs in June 2013 to 660,600 in June 2014 grew at a 8.3% rate.
In For EmployersTags Temp workers, contract staffing, IT workers, technical professionals, Galaxy Management Group