Temps become permanent fixtures

DRACUT — Scott Gelinas spent the first eight years of his working life at the same manufacturer and planned to make a career there. His layoff in the summer of 2002 changed all that.

In the two years since, Gelinas, 27, of Dracut, has worked at two other companies and, before too long, he could well be working at a third. Of course, he says, he’d prefer more stability. But frequent job changes just happen to go with his current career: temporary worker.

“Am I afraid of losing my job again? Yeah,” said Gelinas, an electronics technician now working a three-to-six-month assignment at a Concord medical device-maker. “Is there a chance I’ll go from temp to temp? Probably.”

More Americans — some by choice, others by necessity — are finding themselves in similar positions as technology, global uncertainty, and increasingly fierce competition restructure the

US work force. Just as companies adopted so-called “just in time” delivery and production methods to better match inventories to demand, so too are they increasingly relying on short-term labor to react more nimbly to changing business conditions.

The result: The temporary help industry is among the fastest-growing segments of the labor market. Employment in the sector has doubled since 1990, ballooning at a rate five times faster than national employment as a whole. By 2012, the Labor Department estimates, the sector will grow by another 50 percent and add some 1.8 million jobs -- nearly triple the projected increase in computer systems and design services.

In the big picture, this bodes well for the US economy, analysts say. The ability to quickly bring on workers when demand rises, and just as quickly let them go when it slips, makes the economy more efficient and productive, which in turn frees up resources for new investment, products, and industries. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has said in congressional testimony that the increased flexibility of the labor force helped make the recent US recession among the mildest since World War II.

But more flexibility means even less security for workers, already buffeted by globalization, automation, and the shifting of jobs overseas.

Temporary employment, of course, is not new. The building industry has long turned to union hiring halls for carpenters, electricians, and laborers to fill jobs that might only last a few months. Corporations for decades have used temporary administrative workers, such as the famous "Kelly girls" of Kelly Services Inc. of Troy, Mich. In Hollywood, actors, directors, film editors, and stagehands are hired by the movie, and work only as long as it takes to make it.

But the nature and extent of temporary hiring is changing. Increasingly, larger temporary work forces are becoming permanent components of business strategies. A recent survey of New England small businesses by Citizens Financial Group and the University of Massachusetts found that of firms with hiring plans, nearly 40 percent said they would hire only temporary workers.

Axcelis Technologies Inc. of Beverly provides another example. Until a few years ago, Axcelis, which makes equipment for the highly cyclical semiconductor industry, followed the traditional pattern of mass hirings when the industry turned up, and mass layoffs when it swung down. After cutting 40 percent of its workers during an industry downturn in 1998, the company decided it needed a different model.

Now, the company maintains a smaller core work force, and supplements it with temporary employees, who make up 20 percent to 30 percent of the peak work force. Between the fees paid to the temporary staffing agency and benefits paid to temps hired directly by Axcelis, company officials say there's little hourly cost differences between permanent and temporary employees.

Instead, the advantage -- and savings -- come from the ability to ramp production up and down, cut severance costs, and avoid some of the corrosive effects that massive layoffs have on worker morale and productivity, said Randy Longo, Axcelis's field human resources director. "In a changing industry," said Longo, "you need a changing work force."

Also changing are the types of jobs filled by temporary workers. In San Francisco, the staffing agency A4C Inc. temps out high-level executives with master's degrees in business administration to companies needing short-term expertise. They're called "plug and play managers."

In Boston, Aaron Green, president of Professional Staffing Group, said that advertising agencies, which have traditionally hired project, creative, and art directors as permanent employees, are now taking them on as temps, keeping them only as long as it takes to complete a particular assignment. "We can have the right person there tomorrow, so they don't have to project demand as much," Green said. "Staffing companies used to be viewed as a necessary evil. Now, we're looked at as business partners."

Over the past 20 years, the temporary help industry has quadrupled its share of US payroll employment, to about 2 percent from about a half-percent in the early 1980s, according to the Labor Department. This sector, however, represents only a small part of the temporary work force; the government tracks temp employment only through staffing agencies, and excludes independent contractors, freelancers, and temps hired directly by companies.

Kelly Services, the Michigan staffing agency, estimates that about one-fourth of US workers are employed in some kind of temporary arrangement, and projects the figure could reach 40 percent over the next 10 years. Carl Camden, Kelly's president, said this "free agent" work force is growing not only because corporations want more flexibility, but also because workers do.

Temporary work arrangements give workers more say in when, where, and for whom they work, Camden said. And according to a recent Kelly survey, more than half of these workers prefer their "free agent" status to a traditional payroll job.

A major drawback to many temporary assigments, however, remains the lack of health insurance and other benefits. Lawmakers and policymakers are only beginning to look at whether the nation needs to change its benefits system -- based on the assumption of longtime service to a single employer -- to address the growing temporary work force. Meanwhile, some companies are revamping benefit plans to cover temp employees, in part because of the growing role of short-term labor in corporate work forces.

Gino Coverty, 34, of Boston, gets his health insurance through his temp agency, Professional Staffing Group, sharing the costs. A graphic artist by training and art director by profession, Coverty has been working as a temp and freelancer since his layoff more than two years ago from the marketing department of a dot-com. He estimates he's probably worked for at least 20 different firms, whether placed by his agency or hustling his own jobs as a freelancer.

While it can be nerve-racking waiting for work -- the summer of 2002 was particularly dry -- it also affords the freedom to say no, Coverty said. When a more lucrative job came along last year, Coverty simply quit the temp assignment he had in a retailer's advertising department, with no hard feelings.

"It affords me flexibility, the chance to do different things and make a lot of contacts as you go from job to job," said Coverty. "Maybe I don't have to do everyday stuff and commit to an employer to have a successful career."

But for Gelinas, the Dracut manufacturing worker, the "everyday stuff" -- including a benefit package -- sounds pretty good. Gelinas, who is earning about $10 an hour, hopes his current temp assignment at Access CardioSystems in Concord turns into a permanent one.

"Someday," he said, "I'd love to be able to say, `I've worked there for 20 years.' "

Robert Gavin can be reached at rgavin@globe.com.