The Temp Economy: From Kelly Girls to Permatemps in Postwar America

over the last de cades of the twentieth century. Time and again, newspaper headlines have lamented what the New York Times called the “downsizing of America”:1 wage freezes and massive layoff s; closed factories and jobs moved abroad; permanent employees replaced by contingent workers. Wages stagnated and access to benefi ts declined. Th e possibility of lifetime employment was replaced with the likelihood of chronic job insecurity and episodes of unemployment. Career ladders collapsed, with more and more workers fi nding themselves stuck at the bottom. Th e temp industry has become a classic symbol of this degradation of work. Temping is the quintessential “bad” job: On average, temps earn lower wages and receive fewer benefi ts; and they have less job security, fewer chances for upward mobility, and lower morale than those with fulltime, yearround employment.2 What’s more, by increasing the fl exibility of the labor supply, the temp industry contributes to downward pressure on wages, decreased employment security, and limited upward mobility for all workers, not just temps.3 By the early twentyfi rst century, the U.S. temp industry had become a behemoth, sending out some three million temps a day and reaching an astonishing 90 percent of employers each year.4 Th is expanding army INTRODUCTION