Fulltime temps scurry for security of permanence

By JULIE MIDDLETON

Top-level contract and temporary staff are scurrying for the security of fulltime jobs as short-term job opportunities shrink.

Horner and Partners executive leasing manager Karen Bryce says the flow of contractors swapping the footloose life for a permanent post has doubled in the past few months.

"It's a big shift. More of them are taking permanent jobs,"she says.

Although Bryce says the figures aren't scientific, executive leasing managers generally expect a constant flow from the contract to permanent pool of about 35 per cent.

In areas such as sales and marketing, she says, that figure has now risen to 60 or 65 per cent.

This view is confirmed by Sheryl Green, the general manager of TMP eResourcing Auckland.

"Sales and marketing contract people have gone and got fulltime positions to create some security," she says.

Those still in the market for short-term contracts in any field, says Bryce, are finding they are "painting the house for longer periods of time than they would like".

New national statistics have confirmed these impressions. The latest TMP job index survey, which came out last Monday and asked employers their hiring expectations for the first six months of next year, has recorded an expected contraction of the overall temp/contract market of 3.3 per cent.

This follows an expected contraction for the six months to December of 6.4 per cent.

Bryce links the slump to market uncertainty since the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, which has led to projects requiring leased talent being pushed back or curbed.

Although 68.5 per cent of the 1602 companies surveyed nationally were adopting a steady-as-it-goes policy for the first half of next year, those intending to cut numbers totalled 17.7 per cent.

Employers planning to boost their temporary staff levels totalled 14.4 per cent.



Tourism, undermined by global travel phobia, is the industry most pessimistic about contract hiring in the first six months of next year.

One in three tourism-related businesses surveyed say they will decrease short-term staff numbers.

Financial services interests also reported a gloomy outlook, with only eight per cent of businesses expecting to increase numbers.

TMP strategy director Kaye McAulay adds that areas such as advertising, where some companies regard spending as discretionary, will offer fewer opportunities for temp work.

She says: "Some could argue that advertising should be the last area seen as a discretionary thing, but in big corporations it gets hit pretty hard when hard times hit."