About four million temps daily report to work in the United States. Following the 2008 economic recession, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 90 percent of all new jobs created were temporary. The majority of temps labor in the economy’s industrial sector, working for corporate employment agencies that rent the temps’ labor to businesses for varying periods of time. They are vulnerable, expendable, and relatively inexpensive, allowing employers flexibility and increased control over their bottom line. Most temps are compensated only for their dispatched time, no matter how long they sit around employment offices waiting to be called to a job, and all temps fall outside the labor protections and federal oversight that workers won in the twentieth century. How did we get here, and what does it mean for workers today and in the near future that so many of our jobs are insecure?
The two studies and...
