Workers Ages 35 and Older Make up the Largest Percentage of Temporary, or Gig, Workers; Nearly 1 in 5 Are Ages 55 and Older
Forty-two percent of people picking up temporary work take on at least two gigs per week1 and new research shows they will have even more opportunities to choose from. Temporary Help Services is the largest category of gig employment and serves as a bellwether for broader growth trends. A study by TrueBlue and Emsi projects that Temporary Help Services employment will grow to more than 3.2 million jobs by 2025, an increase of nearly 254,000 jobs (8.5 percent) from 2019. This compares to 6 percent growth for all US jobs from 2019 to 2025.
The study is based on Emsi’s data, which is aggregated from state and federal employment sources. The analysis focuses on Temporary Help Services workers who are employed by companies as well as self-employed.
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How companies and people look at work is different today, likely inspired by the memories of a casualty-ridden recession and the emergence of new technologies that make it easy to connect in real time for on-demand employment needs,” said Patrick Beharelle, CEO of TrueBlue. “Gig employment will continue to grow in popularity as more companies choose to reduce fixed labor costs to stay nimble and workers gravitate toward flexible work experiences that fit their lifestyles.”
“The labor market continues to be tight, and businesses are using many avenues to find the talent to keep their competitive edge,” said Rob Sentz, Emsi’s chief innovation officer. “This analysis indicates that gigs and other forms of temporary employment are a viable way for people to enter the labor market and for companies to quickly locate talent.”
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Emsi is a labor market analytics firm that uses data to improve economic prosperity by connecting people, education and work in communities across the US and internationally. Emsi works with professionals in higher education, economic development, workforce development, talent acquisition and site selection. Headquartered in Moscow, Idaho, with offices in the UK and Dallas, Emsi serves clients across the US, the UK, Canada and Australia.
TrueBlue is a global leader in specialized workforce solutions that help clients achieve business growth and improve productivity. In 2018, the company connected approximately 730,000 people with work. TrueBlue’s PeopleReady segment offers on-demand industrial staffing services, PeopleManagement offers contingent and productivity-based, on-site industrial staffing and driver staffing services, and PeopleScout offers recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) and managed service provider (MSP) solutions to a wide variety of industries.
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