FIRMS SCRAMBLE TO FILL TEMPORARY HIGH-TECH JOBS.Byline: Timothy Egan The New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times The hiring hall of the Information Age is a fourth-floor office encased en·case tr.v. en·cased, en·cas·ing, en·cas·es To enclose in or as if in a case. en·case  ment n. in glass and granite, just a few blocks from a waterfront that once buzzed with temporary workers of an entirely different sort. It is not really a hall, of course, nor does it hire out in the traditional sense. It is more like an air traffic control center: a Web-page maker is being sent north to a small start-up company start-up company A new business. ; a ``content specialist'' is hurried hur·ried adj. 1. a. Moving or acting rapidly. b. Required to move or act more rapidly; rushed. 2. Done in great haste: a hurried tour. across Lake Washington Lake Washington is the second largest natural lake in state of Washington (after Lake Chelan) and the largest lake in King County. It is bordered by the cities of Seattle on the west, Bellevue and Kirkland on the east, Renton on the south and Kenmore on the north, and surrounds to the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Wash.,; a technical recruiter is dispatched south of Seattle. ``The appetite for technical skill in this city has become insatiable,'' said Sheri Lee, manager of Resource Management Services in Seattle. The company finds temporary workers for high-tech and professional businesses. Six years ago the company did not exist; now it can barely keep pace with demand. It is at the confluence confluence /con·flu·ence/ (kon´floo-ins) 1. a running together; a meeting of streams.con´fluent 2. in embryology, the flowing of cells, a component process of gastrulation. of two business trends: the unquenchable need for high-technology specialists in all areas and the rise of temporary placement firms. The resulting demand is not just for technically proficient pro·fi·cient adj. Having or marked by an advanced degree of competence, as in an art, vocation, profession, or branch of learning. n. An expert; an adept. temporary workers but for controllers to sort them out and direct them where they are needed. Resource Management is one of at least 229 companies nationwide that specialize spe·cial·ize v. 1. To limit one's profession to a particular specialty or subject area for study, research, or treatment. 2. To adapt to a particular function or environment. in professional temporary placement, high-tech or otherwise. In 1990, there were only 44 such companies, said Jim Kennedy, who publishes an annual directory of temporary placement companies. Kennedy foresees a day in the near future when many corporations will have a core group of permanent employees and then ``flex'' the rest of the staff - the ``contract'' or ``just-in-time'' employees, as he calls them. The Labor Department The Department of Labor (DOL) administers federal labor laws for the Executive Branch of the federal government. Its mission is "to foster, promote, and develop the welfare of the wage earners of the United States, to improve their working reports a similar wind blowing through the American work place. In 1983, there were 619,000 temporary jobs in the country. By 1994, that number had grown to 2.25 million, and the government projects a 60 percent increase by the year 2005. Still, the total number of temporary positions is less than 2 percent of all jobs. The fastest-growing segment of temporary jobs is in technical and professional fields, which make up 15 percent of the temporary force, Labor Department officials say. While the image of temps has long been that of downsized, down-on-their-luck people in between real jobs, Lee laughs at the very idea: the people who come through her office are paid $15 to $50 an hour, for contracts that last three to six months on average. As competition has heated up among temporary placement companies, some benefits are now being offered. Resource Management just started a 401(K) program for the temporary workers it places. ``A lot of people consider this a preferred form of employment,'' Lee said. ``These folks control their own destiny. They are shopping around, in some cases. Or they just don't want to be at one place for a long time.'' Critics may see the rise of the technology temporary service as another nail in the coffin of American job security. These jobs, typically offer no benefits and no chance for lasting bonds with employees. They are held by people who act as digital smoke jumpers This article is about the novel. For firefighters, see smokejumper. Smoke Jumper is a novel by Nicholas Evans published in 2001. . ``The fact is that in today's interconnected global economy, you have to watch out for yourself,'' said Bruce Steinberg, a spokesman for the National Association of Temporary and Staffing Services, a trade group based in Alexandria, Va. ``People are starting to recognize that job security is no longer with the corporation, it is with the individual.'' CAPTION(S): Photo/Box Photo/Box: Making it Many people associate temporary wo rk with low pay, and not without reason. The average hourly wage for the 1.12 million temporary workers in the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. in 1994 was only $7.74 an hour. But temporary workers in high-technology fields are in a differenct pay class entirely, as illustrated by these examples. Figures are average hourly wages in November 1994, the most recent available. The New york Times |
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