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Guest Post: Are We Moving Toward a Perma-Temp Workplace?
Submitted by Wall St. Cheat Sheet
Are We Moving Toward a Perma-Temp Workplace?
Last Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced the unemployment rate remained flat in July. Since we entered August, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner
have been repeating the mantra that job growth may still be farther off
than we’d like. But is the truth we have finally made a more meaningful
shift to a perma-temp society of workers?
The Invisible Hand Moves Slowly, But It Keeps Moving Nonetheless
When we first bought the concept of “free market capitalism”, it was
an easy sell. We were told we’d be able to buy whatever we want whenever
we want it … at everyday low prices! We were also told access to free
markets would unlock incredible wealth for the United States.
Unfortunately, to increase the variety of choices in store aisles and
increase the size of the stores to warehouse-sized big boxes, we had to
open our markets to a much larger base of foreign competition. In
addition, to offer these countless shiny widgets at the most affordable
prices possible, the wholesale cost of these items had to be driven much
lower.
True to fashion, we jumped in without a care for the long term
consequences. For a little while, we enjoyed the best of all possible
worlds as domestic jobs were still plentiful and cheap imports flooded
our favorite stores. All the while the Invisible Hand was slowly
adapting to the new economic model. The first phase of this major
gestalt shift was for corporations to unlock the untapped value of
outsourcing production or relocating those jobs and facilities where
labor was cheaper.
Although this phenomenon ravaged classic manufacturing towns, the
recent housing bubble muted the full devastation because many skilled
blue-collar workers were able to participate in construction and
remodeling businesses. Given the current state of the real estate
market, we now have a much more accurate picture of how harshly free
markets have affected blue collar jobs.
Outsourcing White Collar Jobs Gets Easier Everyday
The same Invisible Hand that restructured physical labor markets has
also been meaningfully restructuring intellectual labor markets. The
first big wave was witnessed when US firms started outsourcing IT and
call centers to India. Now, we are seeing the next big wave of white
collar jobs sail overseas to the cheapest bidder.
Websites such as Elance and ODesk offer intellectual labor in almost
every major sector. And hiring is easy as making a date on Match.com.
Looking for graphic design work? Why pay $150 an hour when you can hire
incredible talent for 90% less? Looking for a research assistant? Why
pay $50 an hour when you can acquire the same exact work product for 80%
less?
A New Generational Attitude Will Catalyze the Shift to a Perma-Temp Workplace
Once upon a time, companies and workers shared a symbiotic relationship. During that era, companies and workers were much more loyal to one another.
Skip forward a few chapters to the mushrooming of retail chains, NAFTA, and
the dotcom implosion. Toss in a dash of 9/11, and we have a young
generation which has a completely different perspective on work. Whether
we call it cynicism or realism, these young people trust their
employers as much as they’ve seen companies take care of their parents
and grandparents over the past 20 years — and that’s not much.
Moreover, these younger workers prefer job flexibility. They have
unprecedented access to affordable travel options. The digital
revolution allows many of them to work remotely. It’s much more socially
acceptable to take jobs all over the country. And, most importantly, if
you talk with almost anyone under the age of 25, now more than ever
they have absolutely no idea how they are supposed to deal with the idea
of a career.
So, this entire segment of the labor market is actually catalyzing a
later-stage shift to the perma-temp workplace. Based on their beliefs
and ideals, many of them willingly choose lower pay and shorter-term
contracts in exchange for the ability to feel freer.
The Dotcom and Housing Bubbles Exemplify the Perma-Temp Future
When the dotcom boom ignited, hordes of workers dumped their stable
jobs for the nouveau American Dream to get rich quick. People either
joined sexy startups, became stockbrokers, or tried their hand at day
trading. As we quickly learned, the overwhelming majority of these jobs
were temporary. The same can be said for all the contractors, real
estate agents, and property flippers during the most recent housing
bubble.
So Long As Someone Else Can Do Your Job Cheaper, Prepare to Hear You’re “Overqualified”
This leaves us to answer the question: are we moving toward a
perma-temp workplace? Is the labor market becoming so large that
businesses will find cheaper workers of equal value for shorter term
contracts? I have a feeling this is why many job applicants are told they are “overqualified”.
Coming full circle, the current unemployment picture is actually much
more complicated and unprecedented than any other time in post WWII US
history. Bernanke and Geithner are not going out on a limb to promise a
future of stable jobs. According to the most basic economic principles,
they should have a very good idea the stage has been set for businesses
to walk down the labor aisle with the same giddy glow as the first
generation of Walmart (NYSE: WMT) shoppers. The cosmic irony is almost
too much to handle.
Since one person’s pain can be another’s gain, we must recognize that
our loss of stable jobs has brought new opportunity to others across
the world (the quality of that opportunity is not for me to judge here).
But we must also look in the mirror and start accepting the fact that
the US workplace is different. Even when the economy improves, the ratio
of temp to real full-time jobs (i.e., long term contracts, benefits, fair wages, etc.) will remain high.
Do you think we’re moving toward a perma-temp workplace? Sure looks that way to me …
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I read an article on another site today about how many people compete for short-lived online-based gigs and the rates are far lower than what employers typically pay. In some cases they are substantially lower than the US minimum wage. I have a fear that many standard jobs that used to be full-time careers are going to be migrating in this direction and will ultimately be the norm - where in most cases the lowest bid gets the job.
This trend is unstoppable as long as the USD is the reserve currency -- the third world non-commodity economies are going to low bid even in a race to the bottom as they need to earn USD to purchase the energy and other commodities that they need to import from commodity rich countries. They will keep their currency depressed to be competitive against us. American jobs and the skills improvement/technology upgradation is what these economies are gaining even though they know that the Americans are paying for these services with currency brought into existence out of thin air (and they probably understand that their USD reserves will some day become worthless, but they are willing to play chicken). As long as middle east oil is denominated in USD, they will continue to fight for our jobs.
The so called "exorbitant privilege" that the French President had characterized the USD global reserve status is unfortunately coming at the huge price of lost jobs to ordinary Americans while unfairly benefiting the financial sector and top management. Americans are going to keep blaming the third world countries while the truth is that our elite did this to us!
You are correct, the other countries will play chicken. We've had it good for a long time, having our cake and eating it too. But this time we will have a decade or two recession that will force a type of change in america.
White collar Day Workers,
Paid by the task...
I see many more omar thorntons in america future
Temps, contractors, and freelancers are more affordable because of the tax structure. You get to outsource your SS/Medicare/Payroll taxes when you hire a temp.
Get rid of those taxes and other regulations that limit the ability of employers to fire at will and you'll see more job security.
I also doubt that offshoring would be nearly as profitable without multinational tax breaks and the currency system.
These trends are almost purely regulatory-driven phenomena.
They also don't have to pay the number one expense - healthcare.
Some day you will move out of Mommy's basement, until then, we are here to help educate you.
Ah, the communications revolution, it is destroying us as a nation. What happens to our cities and communities when nobody is anchored to anyplace, a population that is constantly in flux, is loyal to nobody and nowhere, resembles an airport than a town. We all abide in Extended Stay America where homes are no longer needed, just hotels. Sounds really cool when you are yound and immortal, not so cool when the reality of this disjointed world sets in.
Ennui. Anyone remember THAT word?
Yeah, I remember ennui, and it bores the HELL out of me. Or at least, it would if I cared enough anymore to actually BE bored.
ahhh yes, ennui. . .
pesky e-motions, so last century. . . the ideal that is sought by corporations is emotion-free environs - emotions get in the way of rational, efficient busy-ness, they clog up the assembly lines. . . only the brightest and best move up in the hierarchy to emulate the corporate mentality - emotionless, ruthlessly efficient. . .
sociopath ideals shall be bred into the cultures, the ideals of emotion-less servants of the corporate-machines. . . human-ity is to be discouraged, it does not serve the machine, it is wasteful. . . the "next generation" will find that adapting to corporate en-culture is necessary. . . those that maintain e-motional states will be only used as an sex-toys, to be discarded as they age. . .
all hail the one world corporate rule!
"Get rid of....other regulations that limit the ability of employers to fire at will"
There's obviously a lack of experience with small business on your part. Having one employee who is just there "collecting a check" can severely damage profitability for a business and even when they finally are fired "for cause", they can suck the tit of both the business and government through unemployment insurance. It's all such a shame. There is way too much of this entitlement mentality going around and being hailed by our "leaders". Until this reverses, we are all in serious trouble.
"The same can be said for all the contractors, real estate agents, and property flippers during the most recent housing bubble."
If they don't understand the market place then that's their problem but I'm sure there are contractors, property flippers, and day traders who do a decent job in any market conditions.
Yup, blame the victim, that's easy to do from your side of town.
Adding this to all the comparisons with the lost decade(s) of Japan, 34% of Japanese workers are contract, temp, or part-time.
In a Nutshell yes............
One thing I see this headed to...is temp force Unions.
One of the goals since day one..............Workers of the World Unite.
Sad part, is this strategy, scenario does nothing to enable them to initiate their Agenda, of Wealth Redistribution...........
Less taxes, means less Welfare State programs.
You must have a middle class, to pay for these programs..........it's dissapearing day by day.
Well, obviously, they will have to fund everything from profits of their nationalized businesses. While this sounds like tin-foil-hat-land, so did any thought of the automaker's bailout 2 years ago. Who the hell knows what these people have planned?
Back when they first started I got health insurance through Working Today, the organization behind what is now http://www.freelancersunion.org/
I miss those days. Been uninsured for 2.5 years although working full-time the past two years. Great reviews, employers luv me, just no $ for health insurance with small businesses. Who is more vulnerable, my small business employers or myself? Just asking rhetorically.
The main difference is that Japan has universal health care and good social security. If we had both of those things in this country, I'd be happy to work as a contract, temp, or part time worker.
Nice try though.
Hey Cass, do you get paid by the hour or by the brain fart?
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1084585
Hey Ray, blow me...
Their budget shortfalls are more than 100% of revenue. 27.3% of the budget is for social services, 20.6% is for service on their debt, and 17.5% is for local government grants most of which is used for the local's share of their social services and education obligation. It isn't sustainable.
Furthermore, the workers who are not full-time add a greater debt to the social services to make up for wages, retirement and other benefits not provided by the companies. This is pretty much where the US healthcare is headed...and wherre our debt is headed.
That's true.
What do you do long term when there are too many workers to do the jobs that need to be done? If you have 10,000 man hours available and only 8,000 hours of work, what do you do with the extra 2,000 hours? At some point the cost of living must drop and the weekly work week must be decreased, otherwise you deficit spend attempting to keep unemployment down. "getting things done" is getting more efficient each day. Capitalism in this context makes no sense.
I've asked it before and I'll ask it again - what is so magical about a 40 hour work week?
Their domestic economy is a mess, largely because too much emphasis is given to the exporters. This applies to labor laws affecting small business start-ups and expansions. Their corporate taxes are the highest in the developed world and many companies are moving manufacturing off-shore to remain competitive in tax-friendly and cheap labor markets. They also have a consumption tax which is stifling to the domestic retail industry and to small businesses. All of this done in an effort to afford their welfare state.
Your defense of lower hours and a lower lifestyle to support welfare is noted. I'm not sure that the 27 million workers in Japan who are forced to deal with fewer hours and a lower lifestyle would agree with you.
Of course, all of this coming to country near you soon. Enjoy.
Indeed. I can't wait. People will be forced to survive with less, and less junk will be created. Whatever will we do?
You missed the point though friend. This is the case in every developed country. Perhaps the current zeitgeist is the problem, no?
What do you do when you have excess labor due to efficiency? You can't always depend on a bubble to employ them.
"excess labour due to efficiency". . .
excess peeps? time for war profiteers to step up and solve your problem!
excess peeps = cannon fodder, nu-weaponry mega-toxic, poisons environs, solves excess peeps problem, clears land-escapes for busyness to strip-mine, extract re-sources to gamble away at teh markets. . .
oh my, what a lovely world!!!
Maybe between jobs, the public can congregate at small community employment centers like the one the Brits went to in The Full Monty. It'll be swell.
Oddly enough, pretty much the only thing that can save us from being an uncompetitive nation of transitory workers with an uncertain future and no retirement is: DEFLATION.
If costs and wages deflate then people will be able to both live less expensively and be more competitive globally.
How we can do that when the banking and government Ponzi schemes depend on inflation is a problem to be solved? Should we kill the banks and strip the government to save the country's future?
If you work in IT, it has been like that for the last ten years. You can't have a career anywhere unless you are a manager.
Quin,
You cannot have a career now in the US unless your on the Gv't payroll.
Problem is, if you have no middle class,upper middle calss, how do you fund the Gv't?.
They are useless eaters, they do nothing, make nothing, and suck the life out of the economy.
Gv't is a Terrible and Consuming Fire.................(our Founders were so smart).How did we get so stupid?.
Of course this will allow the Obama Brown Shirt Armies to form, any job, is better than no job right?.
Already soldiers are re-upping,( after 3-4 tours ) and new enlitistments are WAY up.............there's no other employment available.
I believe that is a remnant of late 20th century market dynamics. The cost for IT personnel, especially consulting, is disproportionately high compared to other skills with similar or greater training (engineers and scientists for example).
A temporary shortage of IT professionals at the end of the century caused IT salaries to skyrocket and so companies have chosen to only hire IT professionals as needed rather than put them on staff. If IT salaries/wages came back in line then more companies (especially small to mid-sized companies) would hire local IT professionals on a permanent basis rather hire IT temps or outsource overseas.
Of course no IT professional wants to hear they are overpriced for the market.
No. They are not over priced. That is not even the problem. The problem is that there is an insource/outsource dynamic in IT. There are complete idiots who share your ideas about human interchangability and every 4 years they start to advise inhouse IT departments get cut and contracted out. So they replace their CCIEs, MCSEs and Solaris admins with 15$ dollar an hour monkeys who already proved they don't a crap by showing up with no degree and no certs. Then when the company realizes they have no idea what is going on in their IT department and everything starts going to crap, they hire back quality. 4 years later, the cycle restarts.
You can't skimp on IT. It is your entire business infrastructure. When you get into a real company where they measure ticket priority by the amount of dollars per hour the company is losing in the outage, you will understand. What is a better in investment? A 100k a year CCIE or a cost savings that makes a $100,000 dollar an hour network outage last for a week?
I am a software engineer. I do see lots of 'temps', but it's my experience that it's caused by inept management. If you can never say 'no' to the client, quality quickly crashes, other customers flee, and a large company comes in and buys the assets at firesale prices, and lays off everyone except a handful of people who know how to keep the machines running and the lights on.
That is one path to financial failure. The other one I see a lot is 'you-are-only-as-valuable-as-your-last-quarter', and the way to pad numbers because of problem 1 I described above is to lay off workers. And it keeps happening quarter after quarter.
Either way, America has lost its way. We don't know how to manage, produce, innovate,
or protect value in a competitive market. It always runs to zero.
That's the same thing my father used to say 15 years ago. Whenever somebody says that, it means they are getting old :) "Todays youngsters, imagine" ring a bell? :)
5 years ago, I started a bussines for outsourcing IT and 3D design in India. I sold the company 2 years ago. and about the outsourcing... I took on local staff to replace the indian workers. THEY WHERE CRAP. What took my guys 4 hours took a week for them! Oke they where cheap but the clients couldn't wait that long. And the hours! I remember to log on on MSN to communicate with them at 20.00h and working another 8 hours. And I started at 9o clock in the morning. If I did it another 4 to 5 years, I would have died.
The outcourcing is a failure. Big companies will soon quit the model.
Cheap stuff in the stores? The money being made is in the distribution and logistics! WE TAKE A 90% MARGING ON THAT STUFF!
I gotta say I agree in the long term. As globalization matures, the arbitrage opportunities for labor supply/product demand will fade, and with it some of the less efficient multinational distribution networks.
When chinese and american factory workers are both making $10 per hour, the idea of importing everything Americans use from China will sound idiotic. Likewise, American customer service workers will eventually cost as little or less than their current Indian competitors, and nobody will be trying to connect you to a call center in Indian when you need to ask a question about your local telephone bill.
The companies that have thrived on the model of using cheap labor to sell to money-drenched former labor classes are going to disintegrate as the markets for cheap labor eventually mature. The only question is, will the result be abject poverty everywhere, or a less consumption-based, more practically employed middle class around the world?
Unfortunately, the transition is becoming pretty ugly for middle class Americans. Hopefully we won't go the way of Argentina.
aaron,
"Hopefully we won't go the way of Argentina."
Oh, no way I see that..............Americans are not like Argentinians.
As soon as the Gv't teat is stopped, and UE goes to MSM reported 25%(meaning 35% real), the SWHTF.
At that point, one would be wise to be out of LE in urban areas.
And, out of D.C. politics..........
I liken it to the old adage,
"When you have never had sugar, you don't miss it".
A 100 million Americans have had sugar............and it was not given to them.
We are seeing the start right now, with the states going after illegals with a vengance,free med care,SS Bennies,welfare, child care, free educations, and filing lawsuits against Bubba on the Mandatory Health Scam...........
Those JOBS that used to be $20.00 an hour, no American wanted?.Well, the times have changed.......people are no longer willing to be Unca Sugar Jr's.
From here, it just get's worse............the Hoodlums of old, will soon have been your neighbors.
Pay back is a bitch.
When? No, at best if.
Maturation of cheap labour market? How? Abject poverty everywhere? Can you imagine abject poverty in a Ritz Palace Hotel?
Just like in the US on US scale, world poverty will be concentrated in certain zones whereas extreme wealth will be in others.
Favorite sentence: "True to fashion, we jumped in without a care for the long term consequences."
Pretty much sums up the past 30 years or so.
mole,
Who's the WE?.
A HUGE majority of Americans played by the rules they were forced to live with, just like their parents did,and their before them.
If anyone allowed & changed the rules, it's the Bstd's on the hill, and on Wall St.
Really Wall St, is not to blame IMHO, as much as the D.C gang.....they are OUR 1st line of defense for regulatory watchdogs.......that's what their for.
Wall St, could never have gotten away with what they did , if the Politicos had done their jobs.............so, they get bent over first.
The guilty should be ferretted out, tried, and jailed or hung...depending their level of criminality.
We have TWO going to pasture, that should be in prison with Madoff, that have been Icons on the Hill for years............removed from office is not enough...........not enough.
I'm sorry, but I really don't buy the idea that Wall Street isn't behind our incompetent government. Why do you think the regulators and legislators exist? They certainly weren't put there by retail investors. They exist to serve the powerful, not the other way around.
But the SEC and our legislature aren't failing us out of malice. They think they are there to protect us. They're simply hamstrung because they can't act as quickly as those who truly benefit from the structure we have. So they spend their time fighting the wrong battles.
The truly powerful don't care about the details in any regulation. What they want is the appearance of safety, so that soon after each slaughter of the puny herbivores at the bottom of the food chain, their prey creeps back into the sunlight, to be stalked again by the predators.
The best way to do that is to make sure regulators are consumed with responding to/preventing the LAST big catastrophy, while completely unaware of the LATEST catastrophy developing under their noses.
How will the new, young, poor workers buy the overpriced stocks and houses of the boomers? a 50 year no interest loan and government subsidized margin account?
Yes! The answer for the consumer is deflation.
The answer for the Ponzi banks that have handed out money to the wrong people or their friends or used the money to gamble and bid up commodities is "inflation".
So, to reward good behavior: saving, hard work and nationalism we need deflation.
To reward bad behavior: greed, gambling, discrimination, elitism, bribery and globalism then we need inflation.
Or is it me who has it all backwards?
Inflation. Debase the dollar, raise the prices of houses and stocks more, tax the gains. Works for the gov.
The only way gas or food can drop in price is if demand for them is destroyed. Deflation would hardly be a reward to hard working families, it would just lower the standard of living for everyone.
Mommy and Daddy will sponsor it. And when they can't, those youngsters are the first of many enslaved working drones of this society.
And as long as there is at least 1 who profits, nothing will change.
Some will protest, yes. But nobody will listen because nobody listens to someone who hasn't got any real money.
The young workers will not be able to purchase overpriced real estate or anything else in the bubble. As the older workers retire (or get laid off first) the asset bubble will break. The trend described in this article will only last as long as the bubble is sustained. After that, it will be really scary!
we're moving towards shitville
as long as the master banksters control government
The same Invisible Hand that restructured physical labor markets has also been meaningfully restructuring intellectual labor markets. The first big wave was witnessed when US firms started outsourcing IT and call centers to India. Now, we are seeing the next big wave of white collar jobs sail overseas to the cheapest bidder.
India can still expect to benefit hugely from this. Her national motto at this point might as well be "Jews for the price of Mexicans." Just wait until no more 2nd+ gen. Americans are willing to put up with the expense and hassle (and limited compensation) of becoming a practicing doctor under Obamacare.
There will be plenty available to fill the roles. There might not be as many 2nd generation physicians though..
generally speaking, when the bad stuff is closer than you think, the good stuff is farther than you thought
On the macro level we are moving toward a 33%participation workplace.
Only 1/3 of the people will be needed to produce what 100% of the people require.
The real problem is inventing the new 'world of not working' for 2/3 of the United States' population, indeed the world population. How will necessities be 'transferred' and not earned?
production is for foreigners. We do service and added value. And for the idiots who are only able to work at a assembly line: you should move to china.
Why all the fuzz? Do you acutally know someone who works in a factory? I sure don't. Everybody I know works in a service or distribution sector.
I think you got it right. We live in the age of "productivity", and productivity is so high that only 20% of the world population need to work in order to produce enough stuff (and services) to fit the basic and intermediate needs of 100% of the world population.
The "enigma of the Sphinx" is that the other 80% of the population need MONEY to buy the stuff (and services) produced by the 20% who work. But that 80% unemployed people don't earn a wage, and without a wage, no money, and with no money, no comsumption.
bravo zina...
most people just cannot see the bigger reality...
the purpose of money was always to allocate scarce energy but with technology freeing the vast majority of the worlds labour force from the production of food (our most basic and important energy source) among most other essential needs, the requirement for human labour in the global energy system (aka economy) is rapidly diminishing and with the exponential growth in computer processing power, the future human labour component of the energy mix will be almost completely unnesessary in the very near future.
It is completely clear that humanity can no longer substitute exponential production and consumption (waste) of mostly useless goods and services (and only through the aid of credit) in order to provide the wages that keep the ponzi afloat. the earths resources and life support systems simply will not allow billions of people to work producing products that must become waste in order to provide simple wages that will allow them to survive. in a monetary system, energy efficiency through technology is the enemy. tomorrow, technology will take its rightful place as mans greatest allie when it will be set free from the chains of the profit system and allow mankind to(eventually) live totally free of physical labour and pursue the important things (science, art, sports, love, weed etc) in life.
money is dead, it has out lived its once essential role and if the monetary profit system still exists 20 years from now, then life will not be worth living for the vast majority of man kind. the transition away from the profit system to the energy credit system will be a one shot only deal.
And this is not a change our granchildren will be forced to make (or break?) . This is the greatest challenge humanity will ever face and its happening right now.
It really is a case of united we stand, divided we fall. We must accept all the worlds resources as being of common wealth and distributed equally through credits via a global system of governance (in which a system of scientists, engineers, computers etc will make decisions) in which case all our artificial resource scarcity can be overcome and a future of unlimited wealth and human potential will begin, or we can continue with the pursuit of individual and national wealth with death through war and poverty en masse and the eventual collapse of our global civilization.
Of course, this new age will not come about by free will and the people and natural forces that have been/are shaping the world for this future know it. it will require the complete breakdown of our global economic system (all personal wealth) and all the suffering that will come with it before thousands of years of human culture (competition) can be destroyed . When we are desperate enough, we will accept a credit (energy rations) system if it means our familys get to eat and although most people will initially feel enslaved by the evil illuminati reptillian rockefeller rothschild nwo conspiracy bullshit, we will all look back on this time in our lives and ask why the fuck couldn't we see the forest for the trees.
I cannot wait for the day when someone who may not even be born yet asks me, "what the fuck were you people thinking". To which i will reply "we were not. we were all trapped in a fantacy fueled by irrational fear. even those people who thought themselves to be awake" ;-)
Not true -- there is hell of a lot untapped potential -- lots of folks without shoes in the rest of the world. Unfortunately, their economies are stuck in the bootstrapping phase. If we were to try to provide shoes to people who have none, food to the starving, roads to the unpaved, homes to the homeless, electricity to the folks living in the dark, sanitation/water, etc. there is tremendous potential demand -- unfortunately, the effects of that demand will spread only gradually to the developed nations and so there is no interest in developing these market.
The current global financial system still oriented to delivering funding to the developed nations. So, we would rather try to sell more homes in housing surplus regions, the 10th pair of shoe to our kids, the 5th iPhone to anyone over 5 yrs, overfeed ourselves into obesity, etc.
anoy,
Then, mi amigo, you have Anarchy...........
You think 200 Million Americans are going to sit by and wait for table scraps?.
Yeah, right.
Perma-Temp? Welcome to Brazil. Almost everyone here is a temp worker, with few exceptions.
How do you handle healthcare benefits? Do you have such a thing?
We have SUS (Unified Health System), a public healthcare system where EVERYONE can get free health care.
Due to budget limitations, SUS have a LOT of serious problems, but anyway it saves thousands of lifes every year.
Of course, if you can pay for private health insurance, you don't need to rely on SUS. But only a minority of Brazilians can afford private health insurance, due to low wages and unemployment.
Zina,
What does a TOP rated Health Care Policy cost, say a family of 2, or 4?.
Also, how does that get you treated faster, with better Dr's, and top rated equipment/facilities?.
A young couple (both being between 30 and 40 years old) can get top rated private health insurance here in Brazil paying something around 400 dollars per month. 200 dollars each one. If you have a kid, everything will cost a little less than 600 dollars a month.
Full-time employees 'waste' resources via the possibility of them receiving full-time employee benefits. Add to that, it is easier (due to US gov paperwork nightmare) to make all employees independant contractors.
The biggest asset of a company are the employees. It will never happen.
Do you know the worst thing to happen to a company? Braindrain.
The only temps being used are the ones being tested out. And those who can't keep the job: The problem is you, and nobody else.
You're living in an alternate universe.
Zina,
No, he's talking about Americans..........
Contract Workers here,no bennies, no secuirty if you do a job well........
Equals SubPar work, and even retaliation...........
You need to remember most people here, are living under a Constitution, and were raised with rights.
And, are armed to the teeth.
To quote Celente,
"When you have nothing to lose, You lose it".
Employers doesn't fear people armed to the teeth, they won't hire you because you have an assault riffle.
Sudden Debt,
The endless amount of 'warm bodies' ready to take a job, ANY job is substantial. As such, for drone work just hire only independent contractors. This not only eliminates certain employee coverage, it also eliminates various other benefits and the need to provide BHO Healthcare and all the paperwork that involves too.
Look, i feel the above is a crock of dung and perhaps unfair to the worker bee, but that is the REALITY in the making.
YOUR NEXT STOP...THE GEITHNER ZONE
http://williambanzai7.blogspot.com/2010/08/next-stopthe-geithner-zone.html
Good one.
Also Factor in that major corporations can reduce hours to 30 per week and avoid much of the health care cost increases related to Obama Care.
Temps for life in america would make Obama president for life !!!!!!!!!!!
I really wish people would stop conflating the invisible hand with the fat finger of big government.
Jobs will indeed go overseas when you double, triple, quadruple, or quintuple the costs of manufacturing in this country due to taxes, regulation, and ballooning regulatory compliance costs. The fact that it took this long to manifest itself is a tribute to how much capital we accumulated back when we had a free market (up to ~1930), and a semi free market (up to ~1970).
The job only lasts 'til Friday but you can apply again on Monday...
I suspect comment will split along dependency lines, people dependent on the corporate job / benefits model saying how this shift is anywhere from bad to horrible, more independent-minded people (contractors, self-employed, etc) saying yep, it's the wave of the future, bring it on.
As someone pointed out, quality of workers & work performed is coming into better focus lately, companies learning way-cheaper can be way-lower quality ...just like anything else.
As the economy slides things get more competitive, and that's the greatest threat to the traditional middle class stable long-term corporate job model. It's not a recent thing. It's been progressing for quite some time now. Many people simply refuse to see it.
One of the smartest things one can do is make alternative plans in case that steady stable corporate job disappears ...as it's more likely to do as time goes along and the economy continues sinking.
This just reeks of Gen X bullshit.
People under 30 right now work temp because there are no jobs for them outside of sales and temp. You can't get a salaried position unless you have experience and the only way you can get experience is if you have a job. And the only way employers will take a risk on someone with no experience is if they have the ability to fire them at any time. Temp work is perfect for the job experience without the employer or the employee committing to anything. From the temp stock, you have them work for 3-6 months and if they're good, you hire them. If not, you either let them go or keep them on temp until they get sick of you and leave. You don't have to pay them 401k match or health benefits or run through the Gen X creature from hell "HR".
The problem with the workforce now is the Gen Xers who will never reach upper management because the Baby Boomers are too competent and experienced and have not saved enough to retire and the Gen Yers who have been using the best technology all their lives. So the Gen X workforce builds moats around themselves in any corporate environment with proprietary systems, processes, and the general bureaucratic malaise that kills innovation and efficiency. Their general mid-management complaints of lack of communication and disloyalty to company. The Gen Yers can't break into these organizations because the systems built by Gen X mid-managers are unintelligible.
If Baby Boomer upper management ever figured out how little time it takes for a Gen Y employee to complete their weekly workload, Gen X mid managers would be fired in a heartbeat. There's a severe competency gap in the US. And it has nothing to do with "free market capitalism".
Your "generational hypothesis" doesn't explain why companies here in Brazil rarely holds an employee for more than 1 year, regardless of how "competent" they are.
Almost all workers are replaceable today, with no difficult. And they will be replaced if it means lower labour costs.
I don't give a shit about Brazil. There's not the same generational dynamic as in the US
Yes it is.
You would be surprised if you check our generational dynamics. It is equal to that of the rest of the Western world.
And it doesn't explain the labour market.
+1
Same here in Europe. If you are replaceable in a hartbeat, you need to do a career change. When I grew up, all I heard was: Be all you can be.
At my first job, my father made me a little bet. The bet was: I give you 500 euro if you don't get fired after 1 year. I was a rebel that didn't listen to anybody, my way or the highway.
My first boss was the meanest mother fucker on this planet, I worked 12 hours a day and for every question I asked, the only response I got was: "google it greeny" or RTFM (greeny is how we call a idiot youngster). Whatever, I needed to get the job done.
You know what? I stayed for 3 years and I made it to management the 3th year!
I quit and started my own company.
Zina
+1000. Very good.
Catullus,
I dig the way you feel, agree with part of it.
However, the EXACT same scenario is now being used on Boomers, who are being replaced with Gen Y's.............
Ask me how I know.Because the same shit was done to me, as a Boomer, and a TON of my other friends.
I retired Involuntarily in '04.
Why? haven't I been rehired?,because I refuse to work for $10.00 an hour, and because the companies I worked for want Gen Y's.
And, unlike a lot of Boomers, I did save enough, and I refuse to answer to punk bitches, who know a tenth of what I know,and only got the position because of their age,and difference in cost.
Companies are by and large idiots..............they hire X'ers, and Y'ers, for 25% of what a boomer costs, pay 4x's the cost's, for 25% of the knowledge,and productive capacity.
And wonder WHY the friggin job is not getting done properly.
Where's the cost savings there?.
There is none.................Fk em'.
Everybody sees the downside, but nobody is seeing the upside. If you own a small business and are looking to expand, you can do so quickly and easily. So part 1 of this labor expansion is perma temp. Part 2 is everybody is a manager, or everybody manages a team in India or Australia. Also, while China can compete for manufacturing, they still can't compete for services. Their English is poor compared to India.
Just as manufacturing didn't completely die because of China. Nike employees didn't all die when they started outsourcing, the nature of the task shifted from putting glue on shoes to manging a logistics and procurement chain.
That won't be a bad thing for everyone as companies will still need people in rich countries. The nature of our work will change from entering data into spreadsheets from managing data and offsite analysis.
Be optimistic guys, those of you who are not on welfare a year from now will probably be promoted.
OK. It sucks everyone can stop laughing.
Econ,
Yeah, and India was pumping out 80% more Engineers that the US, and bringing them over, and paying them 50K for a job that paid an American Engineer 80k+, so we know who got the axe.
Then, they figured out shit, we can hire the Indian Engineers for $35k, and KEEP them in India, and save those bucks, and the $35k job in India was worth at least the $50k they were paying in America, plus they got to live at home.
Win / Win
A strange article.
Outsourcing those jobs do not go as easy as it was for some others. Companies are trying some sort tricks to avoid it. The bottom line will be when cheaper countries start their own companies in the same sectors.
At this point, US (and others) companies will do what they did before for other jobs: go to the said cheaper countries and compete for the local workforce by hiring the most proficient in order to prevent the cheaper countries new companies from taking off and start challenging the current world hierarchy in companies.
For example, Russia, the US and Europe have an air industry. China and India could have one. In order to thwart this, Chinese and Indian workers trained in the sector are hired by Western companies in order to make it harder for a chinese or indian company to exploit their own workforce.
For many IT sectors and others, it is not yet the case. It might never be the case.
And the answer is.........yes. I live in PA and the state has been advertising jobs for the PUC and other state agencies, and in the ad it says this job will last for 3 years, and it pays no benefits. I have a friend in that agency and he says the job is guaranteed for 1 year but anything after that is questionable, so the job may not last for 3 years. WTF?
Look at any help wanted site and see how many positions are being advertized by temp agencies. Looks like it's around 80% for most non managerial jobs. Temp agencies generally keep 30% of each worker's paycheck for their services, and they make sure that it is very expensive for the employer to hire the person who is temping, the temp to hire hook is generally a sham. A new species of shark joins the feeding frenzy!
Imagine:
You buy a new car.
You have 14 day for a refund
The car doesn't start after the second day.
What do you do?
1. Ask for a refund?
2. Keep the broken car because the colour suits you.
It's your money. You do with it what you want.
Me? I would ask for a refund. I'm no idiot.
Same thing goes for employees. You hire somebody, and after 3 months, he/she doesn't do or can't do the stuff where you hired them for. What do you do? Me? I booth the person!
This has generally been my experience in the temp sector for the last decade. Although I don't think the competency gap is generational as much as it is educational. I don't even mean this in a traditional sense; many people lack the intellectual interest in their daily lives - these are the people who drag their feet for the sake of "job security".
Personally, after some hellish jobs in sales - I was invariably one of the more efficient workers (so I would never have to go back to sales) and was always offered permanent jobs after 3-6 month temp assignments. My analysis: many people don't give much of shit about how their life fits in to the rest of the world - I observed this behaviour in many different age ranges. These are the people who would give me blank looks when I asked questions about how our little task fit into the greater picture of whatever company we worked for and the economy as a whole. Those that just did their task and kept their mouths (and minds) shut often made mistakes because they were not thinking about the big picture.
I worked for a company that auctioned vehicles of all kinds. It was a most useful job I had for years. I was a temp there. The full time employees at the place of work were locked into specific rules and specific authorized and such. When my job or task was over for the day I can go home right then and there even if it was only 10 Am.The rest of the regular employees were stuck until 4 pm fighting the afternoon sugar crash and nappies.
I used to say things like the failure of company equiptment is not my problem as a temp. I need to have equiptment that functions or a crew that follows commands when I was assigned a crew and a large task by MY boss.
My temp status at the company was totally looked down upon by the very snobbish and high and mighty car dealers driving little 70,000 dollar toys to auction. They cannot stand to have a temp stand on thier toes and ask for the keys to properly place the car into the auction block line.
They sometimes get to understand that I will have a truck to move through the sale and it is a 18 wheeler built before most people were born and had technology that has to be taught to the wee ones who just turned 21 and got their CDL's to drive these older trucks.
Fortunately they are fast learners (They have to be or I will boot them off and drive it myself) that the rig has a dual stick or dubleover, under drive or even a rear axle shift mechanizm instead of a simple Automatic D for drive or N for nuetral.
Yessir, I was a most useful temp. My knowledge of the older equiptment and ability to manage (Whoops.. teach) the young ones what the equiptment requires of them so that no one gets hurt made me valuable. As a crew boss I had 10 people who were also temps and they were nothing but ants. As soon as thier task were complete everyone fled off the property clocking out.
What happened?I also enjoyed taking very power ful stereo equiptted vehicles round the corner past the general manager's office with all the windows down blaring Cash's old song "Take this Job and Shove it" where the entire facility can hear.
That was fun.
Well my outfit had a expensive temp operation at a certian expense each week. They found a cheaper temp outfit for the same wages each week to do the work for less cost. So My temp company was fired and I was offered to transfer to the new temp company.
When I gazed upon the really slow and unmotivated group of crew in that new temp workforce, thier only job was to open and close doors in winter to get the cars and trucks out and keep the buyers (Clients, customers etc) warm and happy.
I could not do it. I am still with my temp company but there is no longer any work at the moment in sufficient quanity to put me to work.
But when that day comes and there is work sufficient, that phone will ring.
But until then? Heh. Now that is living. No debt no problem. A bit of bread and meat along with a treat once in a while keeps you strong and ready for the next call which may never come.
Im pretty sure that once everyone is still required to work at that place as a temp instead of regular workers with regular wages because America must have cars and trucks no matter what. Everything is fine. Temping is good.
It's the Boss who is looking to save his or her over grown and entrenched position that is increasingly being threatened by a corperate attitude towards lower costs, ever lower costs.
"Do you think we’re moving toward a perma-temp workplace? Sure looks that way to me …"
Yes, the transaction costs of dealing with people all over the world is going down to zero.
I think your main point is right but a lot of the other stuff like "Invisible Hand", "free market", etc. is pretty misinformed. Our economy is being manipulated by a bunch of socialist pseudo-scientists who play childish games with numbers but have no understanding of economic science.
Looking at things here with a different eye, I cannot see a general disadvantage of being a temp/contractor on W-2, if your wage is a bit higher than an employees to make up for fully self-paid health insurance and unpaid-vacation-only. (Put some money aside and get a catastrophic insurance!)
401k match? I will never lock my retirement money into a 401k, to helplessly watch the gov't fiddle with the payout taxes in the future...
And as an employee, you can get fired as quickly.
So what's the point?
I see many more omar thorntons in america future