Glock mentioned in article about permanent "temp" jobs

[Dreaded Claymore]

Glock's factory in Georgia was mentioned in this article about the disturbing new practice of "hiring" people through temp agencies in order to avoid giving them the salary and benefits that the job would otherwise call for.

http://inthesetimes.com/article/15972/permatemps_in_manufacturing/

[HUTCH 7.62]

In before the Glock leg hounds

[Roland Deschain]

I've been seeing this occur a lot at my place of business recently. Over 75% of our software engineering team are contractors and most have been with us for ~2+ years. Almost all new hires (product management, marketing, etc.) are coming in from a temp agency and not being converted. So it's not just manufacturing jobs following this trend (from my limited experience)

[Exospeed]

My company has been doing this for the past 2-3 years. It was explained to us "old timers" that when the economy tanked, they resorted to temps so they wouldn't have to lay off our permanent employees if the time came for that.

also with the health insurance fiasco aka obummercare it lets them off the hook with having to provide medical insurance for them.

[mag360]

Man thats some low pay for a skilled job thatvhas to switch shifts regularly. But...are they having trouble filling it?

[njineermike]

Since when is hiring through temps considered "new"? Not enough actual problems and need to make ones up for the artifical indignation, evidently.

[Kurus214]

Since when is hiring through temps considered "new"? Not enough actual problems and need to make ones up for the artifical indignation, evidently.

When it's become a standard practice to avoid paying a decent wage with benefits. And if that's not cheap enough move the jobs to India and China to "follow the sun" type of workweek.

My industry has been doing this for 20 years, and Microsoft was the first to get busted by the IRS for temps that were not temps - working years and years as a "contractor'.

Most businesses in my industry are aware that "temp" means 18 months or less with a break of 6 - 18 months before they can come back.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permatemp

[18Dmedic]

Lots of firms are doing this because there are a lot of...cough...padded...cough...resumes out there. People are lazy. Remember guys, we are not the majority. We may all be hard workers here but there is a LOT of lazy out there.

Firms don't want to have to do a lot of work with an employee, train him or her for weeks just to see that they're not fit to do the job and have to start anew with another candidate.

Also, they don't only do the temp thing to only save money on bennies and wages. Temp companies don't work out of the goodness of their hearts...employers pay them. When I had to hire people in the past, I used a temp agency. If I was hiring a civilian temp at $18/hr, I was actually paying the firm $27/hr. they in turn were paying the temp the $18/hr wage and pocketing the difference.

Later, if I chose to hire the temp, there is a huge conversion fee (temp to perm) equivalent to 20-30% of the annual wage of the position. But this fee is negotiable. I have received it as low as 10% of annual.

There is a lot more to it than what you think. It's not all tin foil hat stuff.

[CWDraco]

the Walmart business plan, its a huge money maker...nothing new here.

the problem also is unskilled labor demands skilled labor pay, so employers just decrease the need for skilled labor and put up with unskilled employees

[SoCal Bob]

One of my sons works for a utility company. He had posted his resume on line and was contacted by several temp agencies about a position with the utility. The utility lets the temp agencies do all the recruiting and verifications then conducts interviews to see if the candidate(s) appear qualified and compatible. Those that work out get job offers like he did, those that don't leave when their one year temp contract expires.

This worked out great for him and looks like it works out well for the utility.

[dunndeal]

They all do it. The daughter of a friend of mine, who has a MS in micro-biology, worked at Genentech for 18 months as a temp @ $70k a year before they hired her permanently.

[Fishslayer]

I thought the beauty of glop perfection was that you could teach monkeys to put one together?

[wobbleside]

Pretty much been standard in the Tech industry for decades. We like to refer to it as the contract to fire merrygoround.

[njineermike]

Ever try firing a complete idiot (even WITHOUT a union protecting him) lately? If I owned a company I'd do this all the time. If someone is a bozo, I can tell the temp agency to get him off my job right now. If he's employed by me, it's a LOT harder, and you STILL face a potential wrongful termination suit. One company I worked at was sued by a former employee that stole material from the jobsite to renovate his own house, drove a COMPANY VEHICLE while drunk (repeatedly), refused to come to work on time, left early, committed dangerous OSHA safety violations (which the company got the citation and fine for), was drunk on an ACTIVE CONSTRUCTION SITE, and we STILL had trouble firing the idiot. There is a reason the temp agency deals with this. Less headache for the employer, fewer HR people to pay full time wages to surf the web and screw off on facebook all day, and easier to get rid of problems.

[icormba]

Nothing new... my sister in-law has been a contractor (temp) with IBM for 20 plus years.

Many (if not all?) agencies have some type of medical plan or at least they did when I contracted... not sure if those plans are any good as I never used them.