Needless to say, COVID-19, the “Stay at Home” order and quarantine has had a huge impact on our economy. As a staffing agency we’ve received a lot of questions on what we’ve been seeing in the market and specifically,what temporary staffing is doing with the spike in unemployment. It’s true that we’ve seen an impact, but there are still a lot of jobs out there to be had.April took the cake for declines, but according to Staffing Industry Analysts(SIA) “Temporary jobs in the US rose by 39,100 in May following a steep decline in April”. This aligns with our own data. May showed an increase of desk activity and we expect June to heed a similar result. Unemployment rates are starting to move in the right direction, and we are excited to see what Q3 will look like for the staffing industry as a whole.  

In 2020 our J2T Flex Division, which handles our contract and contract to hire roles, saw some positive employment trends.

• In 2020 25% of our temps have converted to full-time employees.
• In Q2 alone 5 clients have converted contractors to full-time employees, and we expect more in June.
• Our average length of assignment is 112 days mostly due to many of our temp assignments being extended even in the month of April.

We expect temporary staffing to hold strong in Q3. As businesses start to recover, they will likely be slow to add headcount and the salaries/benefits that come with that. This is where contractors and contract to hire roles come into play and can make an impact. You can get someone on your team right away without adding to your payroll. Contract to hire is a great way to “try before you buy”. If the work has been piling up the past couple of months and your company isn’t ready to lift that hiring freeze, we recommend exploring a contractor. If interested, feel free to reach out to one of our J2T Flex members to get some help!

We’d love to hear your thoughts on the market and specifically temporary jobs. Feel free to leave your comments below.

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