Temporary hiring unlikely to come down soon

While the national unemployment rate climbed to 9.8 percent for November, the amount of temporary and contracted workers continues to increase as well, according to an Annual Workforce Trends Study from Yoh - a management services and recruitment outsourcing company.

The data revealed that 80 percent of employers surveyed expected their non-employee staffs - defined as contractors, consultants and temporary workers - to remain the same or increase in the coming year.

Statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showed a 23.4 percent increase in temporary employment between September 2009 and September 2010 - the biggest annual gain since the Bureau started tracking such figures in 1991, the American Staffing Association reports.

The prolonged reliance on temporary workers rather than full-time employees indicates a dramatic shift in hiring approaches, Yoh detailed.

"Historically, temporary employment has served as a bellwether for permanent hiring, but these findings suggest that something much more substantial is occurring to overall workforce composition," Lori Schultz, president of Yoh, stated.

Temporary employment has climbed by 494,000 jobs since September 2009, while 88.5 percent of employers say their temporary staff has stayed the same or increased since September 2008, according to Yoh's data.