One of the labor markets early warning indicators may be flashing trouble for the broader economy. As reported by writer Eric Morath, hiring by staffing agencies has ground to a halt in twenty sixteen. The temporary staffing sector has shed more than twenty seven thousand positions since December, which is in stark contrast to the previous five years when the category expanded five times faster than overall national employment.
Many economists perceive the temporary staffing industry to be a leading indicator since cautious firms tend to initially hire temps when an expansion begins and tend to dismiss those nonpermanent workers when they sense that the economy may be faltering.
The question now is whether the recent flattening in temporary employment represents a prelude to the next downturn or simply represents a respite for an industry that has been growing dramatically in recent years.
As indicated by Morath, more than one in fifty U.S. workers were employed as temps at the end of last year, eclipsing a record established in early two thousand during the waning stages of America’s technology bubble.
