The tempification of the American workforce continues apace. While job losses make headlines, we don't hear as much about an equally insidious trend: real jobs with benefits are being replaced by "contracting opportunities" and temporary placements.

In October, the U.S. economy created 34,000 new temp jobs, while posting a net loss of 190,000 jobs. Some media reports have hailed local upticks in temporary employment as portents of an improving job market. The idea is that employers are using temporary workers until they feel secure enough in the recovery to hire full-time workes back.

That's one hypothesis. The other possibility is that employers are ditching permanent employees and replacing them with long-term temps.

The great Perm to Temp shift didn't start yesterday. From 1969 to 1993, the number of part-time workers in the American workforce nearly doubled. This surge in part-time employment accounted for a quarter of all growth in the labor market. From 1982 to 1990, the payrolls of temp agencies grew ten times faster than the workforce as a whole. By 2005, contingent workers accounted for nearly a third of the U.S. workforce.

Bosses like temps because they are "flexible," i.e., because they can be hired and fired at will. Temp workers tend to earn less and enjoy fewer benefits than their permanent counterparts. The tempification of the economy helps keep permanent workers' expectations low. Mixing temps with full-time staffers on the same jobsite is a time honored way to keep a workforce internally divided.

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