25% of workforce could become temps

Hidden in the recent "good" jobs news (that real unemployment is down by two tenths of one percent to "only" 17.3%):

An encouraging jobs report Friday underscored the growing prominence of temporary workers who some experts predict could constitute up to a quarter of the workforce in a few years.

A big reason employers shed a far-less-than-expected 11,000 jobs last month is that temporary staffing agencies found slots for 52,000 additional workers, the most since 2004, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) said.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2009-12-07-contractworkers07_ST_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

Temporary and contract jobs have no job security, no chance to advance and no benefits. That's not the jobs we need or want.

Moreover, this "improvement" simply means that retail employers hired 52,000 Christmas temps. Let's see what happens to the jobs numbers (permanent and temporary) after Christmas.