The opportunity is becoming very clear!

So it might be a good time to start offering your clients temporary staffing services.

As we have documented in previous posts, companies are using more temporary employees. Obviously, we expect this trend to continue, and intensify, in the long term.

Paul Vigna and John Shipman of the The Wall Street Journal put together a great article this week, "Temp Jobs Gain as Uncertainty Reigns," in which they report on what a few of the very largest staffing firms are saying about this trend.

Despite rising profits, big businesses remain hesitant to hire permanent employees, a reluctance that is fueling demand and higher profits for the companies providing temporary staffing services.

Manpower, TrueBlue Inc. and Robert Half International reported second-quarter gains in their businesses as employers continue to prefer the flexibility that temporary workers provide while awaiting more tangible signs that the budding recovery won't stall.

TrueBlue, a Tacoma, Wash., blue-collar temporary staffer that operates Labor Ready, Spartan Staffing and other staffing outfits, last week said profits more than doubled, aided by a 15% rise in revenue and an income tax benefit.

Chief Executive Steven Cooper said manufacturers are hiring more temps now than during similar points in prior economic recoveries. "It feels like they're hiring back full shifts full of temps," he said during an call with analysts. There may be a point when businesses become more comfortable with hiring permanent workers, "but we don't see those conversions happening yet," Mr. Cooper said.

In fact, he suggested businesses are quite happy with the flexibility offered by hiring temps, and aren't in a hurry to give that up. "They don't have to deal with the out-placing on the downside and so as we've gone through a couple recessions in the 2000s and this [last] one being a big one, lots of lessons learned," he said.

So far this year, the private sector has added 593,000 jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' establishment survey; a little more than a third of them, 218,000, have been temporary jobs.

Bigger rivals Robert Half and Manpower each posted a doubling of second-quarter income; Robert Half, which had a 10% first quarter drop, posted a sales gain of 2% over a year ago. "We believe there is greater acceptance by companies of flexible staffing models that include a mix of both full-time and temporary workers," Robert Half CEO Harold Messmer said last week.

Manpower's revenue jumped 21%, aided by an acquisition, and built on its 13% first quarter sales gain over a year ago. That first quarter gain ended a string of revenue declines that stretched back to 2008.

Manpower, of Milwaukee, Wis., forecast third-quarter revenue will rise between 20% and 22% over a year ago. Finance chief Mike Van Handel said demand for the company's services remains solid, with "very strong" long-term trends as companies address increased demand with flexible temp labor, "and remain cautious on permanent hiring."

CEO Jeffrey Joerres noted that while the company is seeing some strength in its permanent hiring business, it is off a low pace. The trends in temporary hiring, meanwhile, are accelerating. "We think this is a secular change," he said in an interview Monday. Companies remain reluctant to hire permanent staff given the uncertain economy.

"The environment is continually improving, it's just methodical and slow," he said. Companies remain unsure of the future, so they are more comfortable with using temporary workers, he added.

Still, Robert Half finance chief Keith Waddell noted the company is seeing strength in permanent hires. "We think people over-cutback and to some degree they're having to reinstate levels of cut backs, and they can do that at a time when the supply of labor has never been better," he said, "so it's a win-win."

Robert Half reported operating income from its permanent staffing services flipped to a profit of $5.5 million from a $1.97 million loss a year ago.

USA Staffing Services:

First, let's look at some figures:

Total Revenue (via Yahoo Finance)
Manpower Inc. - $17.3 Billion
Trueblue Inc. - $1.1 Billion
Robert Half - $3.0 Billion

So, together, these three companies are billing their clients over $20 Billion a year, but do they really offer a better product to those clients than the entrepreneur making a couple placements per month? Are the candidates they recruit for clients somehow more qualified than the entrepreneur's candidates would be? I think the entrepreneur would say no. I think I would agree. I would bet we are not alone.

While some might argue that these companies must be delivering a product of superior quality or they wouldn't have clients paying them $20 Billion every year. That sounds great in theory, and it might be true, if the largest of those clients were NOT locked into exclusivity agreements as we noted in our post from a few weeks ago, Frustrations of a Hiring Company. Then perhaps, we could find out.

So why isn't the entrepreneur offering temporary recruiting services to other clients?

Realistically, it is a significant investment, in terms of both time and money, to even offer a client temporary staffing services. At USA Staffing Services, we make it possible for the right entrepreneur to compete with any of those giant staffing operations in three critical ways:

1. We fund the entire payroll
2. We manage the entire HR function (administration and compliance)
3. We assume ALL the risk for the entire operation

As a result, our Authorized Dealers have a very clear competitive advantage over the largest of staffing firms. They can devote their entire focus to developing relationships with clients and candidates -- you know, the activities that actually make money -- and they can completely eliminate any risk associated with a staffing operation in general (clients paying late, or worse, not paying at all!).

Check out our website today!

http://www.usastaffingservices.com/