American Staffing Association - Staffing Success Special Issue

To Create More Jobs, Rethink
How We Feel About People
Who Are Unemployed

Stop stigmatizing people who are without jobs. Unemployment embodies deep fears of desperation, humiliation, and vulnerability, so we tend to turn against unemployed people instead of doing everything possible to empower them. Embrace job creation and full employment “as a collective societal responsibility, and recognize the extraordinary potential of every human being.”

—Jody Lewen, founder and executive director of the Prison University Project

over. Until 2010, it had increased slowly in the previous 10 years, generally adding a day or two per year, but overall averaging 11. 2 weeks, or less than three months. In 2010, staffing employees worked for their firms longer than ever. Tenure increased by 1. 7 weeks, from 12. 1 in 2009 to 13. 8 in 2010.

As it did for virtually all industries, the Great Recession had a significant effect on corporate employment among staffing and recruiting firms. With reduced demand for temporary and contract employees and for recruiting and placement services, staffing firms trimmed their corporate work forces (such as recruiters, customer service representatives, and payroll clerks) and closed offices during the recession. And staffing firms—like businesses across the economy—were slow to add new permanent employees after the recession ended. 32

BLS does not distinguish between
the temporary and contract employees
and the corporate employees of “tempo-
rary help services” firms in its monthly
surveys, and ASA measures only
temporary and contract employees in its
quarterly staffing employment and sales
survey, so there is no good measure of
overall corporate employment among
such firms.

Figure 12: Search and Placement Employment Totaled 235,500 in 2010, Up 3.6%
From Its 2009 Low.
Create Microlending Program
for Small Businesses

Successful microlending programs keep transaction costs low, and the loans are “local,” thereby generating an acceptable return to the lender. Government could incentiv-ize this program by providing legislative clarity and oversight standards for these small loans, and by expanding programs such as the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Community Express lending initiative, which provides technical assistance to borrowers in underserved communities and incentives to lenders.