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IT’S A HARD KNOCK LIFE FOR TEMPS
SARAH VEALE HAS A CAUTIONARY TALE OF EMPLOYMENT WOES
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by
View
November 10 – 16, 2005 |
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It’s 8am and I’m waiting for the phone to ring. It’s a
crapshoot at this point whether I’ll get any last minute
work, but if there is any to be found, it’s at the start of the
day when someone’s real employee is calling in sick.
Welcome to my world as a temp.
Why am I a temp? Sometimes I’m not sure myself,
though I’m almost positive it has something to do with
the hidden job market. A quick survey of online job
search resources reveals that most employment these
days is initially contracted out (for example, of the 40
listings on the first page of available Hamilton jobs via
Workopolis, all were represented by a staffing agency).
For someone like me, university educated with solid
work experience, I initially figured I could find something
related to my field and work a comfortable salary job, no
problem. Yet according to OECD labour market stats,
12.8 per cent of Canada’s workforce is employed on a
temporary or contract basis—three times as much as the
United States. This includes not just your garden variety
office worker, but computer technicians, government
employees and those employed in the labour sectors.
What these apparently disparate groups have in
common is that all perform full–time work for part–time
pay without health benefits, sick days or job security.
I was wrong about that comfortable salary job, by the
way. In my time as a temp, most of the work I did was
painfully mind–numbing, repetitive and unskilled, not to
mention completely unrelated to my background and
experience. I soon gave up on finding my dream job, let
alone the big ticket earners. What happened to the
emphasis on “good fit” that the agency claimed was so
crucial to the employer–employee relationship? Off
hiding with the rest of the job market, apparently.
Statistics Canada estimates that temporary employees
earn, on average, 16 per cent less than regular
employees. Most of this is attributable to agency “mark
up” while the balance constitutes the absence of raises,
bonuses and other perks regular employees enjoy. It
would be easy to blame this on the territory, but temp
work has a porous meaning—an assignment can last
anywhere from a few hours to a few years and most
agencies charge a hefty buy–out fee, further
discouraging official hires by actual employers.
Dismayed and broke, I took whatever came along.
Rabid for a plus–balance bank account and a reliable
agency reputation, saying yes can be easier than saying
no—especially when it could be weeks before another
offer. It may not lead to secretarial satori, but even a
lousy job is better than starving.
This strategy quickly became the proverbial race to the
bottom. Some days, it was as if I was in a corporate
hierarchy designed by Dante in his Inferno period:
overlapping rings of successive disappointments, each
offer less desirable than the one before. From data entry
clerk to Girl Friday to morphine hander–outer, these
“super winner” jobs, while rarely advertised, are actually
the most common bandied about. All altruism aside,
while it may be someone’s dream job to work with the
most desperate in our society, the last place I want to be
is between a drug addict and a fridge full of narcotics—
or at least, not for minimum wage.
Of course, these jobs are never explicitly shopped as
being boring, degrading or dangerous. What actually
happens on the job is frequently guarded more secretly
than a freemason’s handshake. The rehab stint was
offered as “reception”. Those with accounting skills often
find themselves in a hive of data entry clerks, keying in
stacks of virtually identical information. And, of course,
there’s the ubiquitous “Administra-tive Assistance”—
most often translated as someone who spends eight
hours a day hunched over a filing cabinet collecting
paper cuts.
Despite the risk of being labelled difficult—not a great
designation when you consider that staffing agencies
specialize in compliant and flexible manpower—I
frequently turned down assignments. This does one of
two things. The good news: it will raise your going rate.
Probably not much, but it will go up. The bad news: since
most temp work is of the bottom feeder variety, working
the higher rungs of the ladder leaves you with a smaller
pool of jobs to choose from.
Surprisingly, being qualified doesn’t improve the
situation, nor does being reliable. I made my reputation
batting clean–up for first–stringers who didn’t show up or
walked out of assignments. Situations like these lead
headhunters to curse our slackster work ethic and crum–
bum accountability. What’s missing in this analysis is a
rather obvious point— when you offer people unstable,
low–wage work, how can you expect them to feel any
duty to be responsible?
In fact, according to the Government of Canada,
instability is the most frequently cited drawback
temporary employees cite when surveyed about their
work. Sudden termination with little or no notice is not
uncommon. While certainly there are cases where being
let go is the result of poor performance, more often than
not it’s related to workflow —stockpiled temps ease the
strain of undefined busy periods, and then are cut when
the party’s over. How easy is it to buy a home, start a
family and save for retirement when you don’t know if the
job you’re doing today will be there, literally, tomorrow?
This is not to say there are not some positive sides to
temping, because there are. For one, you get to test
drive a variety of positions and employers. Second, you
can learn new skills on someone else’s dime. For me,
the best part was having the contract turnover just as the
job got too repetitive or detracted too much from other
projects I was working on. It had the same effect of
quitting, but without all the guilt or giant black gash on
my resume.
But the problems with today’s contracted–out job market
far outweigh any short–term benefits. Despite the
emphasis on finding a good employer–employee fit, the
reality is a warm body is often more important than a
qualified one.
What does this say about opportunities out there for
people not just willing to work, but eager to put their
education and skills to use? When the job market is
monopolized by staffing agencies, getting stuck at the
bottom is a very real possibility regardless of education
or background. I wonder how many others like me have
taken these sorts of jobs with the intention of doing it
only for a short while only to have it devour them whole?
I’m not sure. Meanwhile, I’m still looking for that
comfortable salary job that seamlessly meshes my skills
with a paycheque. It has to be here, somewhere.
Whether it’s hanging out with my time sheet is an
entirely different question. V [SARAH VEALE]
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