Temp Jobs the 'New Norm" : Permanent Decline Is Here?

If this is the new norm, our country is headed into new territory. What we are looking at is going back to when we were a developing nations, maybe at least 100 years or more. Now how cool is this - isn't this what millions voted for last November?

Reducing our country into "developing' status and become irrelevant in the world is a good thing? What a good way to isolate us and control outcomes by an all powerful progressive socialist government that believes it has a mandate to "fundamentally change" the country. Didn't the people proclaim this when they voted twice for the progressive leadership to bring this about?

The voters understand what's happening in the country, right? Who are these voters? 

Temporary Jobs Becoming a Permanent Fixture
Source: Christopher S. Rugaber, "Temporary Jobs Becoming a Permanent Fixture in the US," Associated Press, July 7, 2013.
July 9, 2013

Hiring is exploding in the one corner of the U.S. economy where few want to be hired: Temporary work, says the Associated Press.

• From Wal-Mart to General Motors to PepsiCo, companies are increasingly turning to temps and to a much larger universe of freelancers, contract workers and consultants.
• Combined, these workers number nearly 17 million people who have only tenuous ties to the companies that pay them -- about 12 percent of everyone with a job.

Hiring is always healthy for an economy. Yet the rise in temp and contract work shows that many employers aren't willing to hire for the long run.

• The number of temps has jumped more than 50 percent since the recession ended four years ago to nearly 2.7 million -- the most on government records dating to 1990.
• In no other sector has hiring come close.
• An Associated Press survey of 37 economists in May found that three-quarters thought the increased use of temps and contract workers represented a long-standing trend.

Driving the trend are lingering uncertainty about the economy and employers' desire for more flexibility in matching their payrolls to their revenue. Some employers have also sought to sidestep the new health care law's rule that they provide medical coverage for permanent workers. Last week, though, the Obama administration delayed that provision of the law for a year.

• The use of temps has extended into sectors that seldom used them in the past -- professional services, for example, which include lawyers, doctors and information technology specialists.
• Temps typically receive low pay, few benefits and scant job security.
• That makes them less likely to spend freely, so temp jobs don't tend to boost the economy the way permanent jobs do.
• More temps and contract workers also help explain why pay has barely outpaced inflation since the recession ended.