Looking for job options beyond 9 to 5? Apart from flexitime offers, there's another, ever-enlarging vista that's opening up. Called the temporary job -- or 'temp' market, it's already 50,000-strong in India today.
The best part is, the segment offers the adventurous soul a premium over what he would have earned working 9 to 5, five-days a week.
A lot of temporary staff are used for tele-marketing and are usually housewives who can then look after their small children as well as earn a few thousands in the process.
Many temporary staff have done so as a lifestyle choice as they would rather work more flexible hours, in order to enjoy life otherwise.
Global temp placements agent Adecco itself has a significant number of temps in its staff of 12,000.
"With corporatisation of the flexible staffing space and global entry of Adecco in the Indian market, we believe that we will be able to create structured contracts that will make most of the services," said Ajit Isaac, founder chairman, People One, which was taken over by one of the largest global temporary staffing agency, Adecco.
While the attrition rate among frontline staff in many private sector and foreign banks is as high as 45 per cent, temporary placement agencies assure their clients to replace temporary staff within 72 hours!
This is in vast contrast to banks' ability to recruit permanent people. This is perhaps the reason why many banks and corporate entities today take temp staff for a test drive, prior to making them permanent.
What's more, as temporary employees are on the payrolls of placement agencies, they are still entitled to provident fund, ESI and other perks.
This is what encouraged Susan Matthews to put in her resignation as the chief IT official at a leading information technology company after her baby was diagnosed with a major heart ailment.
She was able to make good the loss of her 6-figure monthly package and at the same time did not lose out on her provident fund. In fact, having opted to switch to a temporary job at the same company, she today earns a fatter package.
"Some of the jobs offered pay a 20-30 per cent premium over daily wages since it takes some convincing to get staff to just work on short-term assignments," said Manish Sabharwal, chairman, TeamLease Services.
At the same time while temporary staff are entitled for all the perks, they also suffer in the sense that employment agencies are forced by law to cut individual's tax even if the employee may have been hired for just one day in a year!
This is quite a common phenomena when permanent secretaries go on unplanned absences. Many corporates having a good relationship with the temp-ing employment agency are able to recruit a secretary for a day!
So how does one go about getting a temporary job?
Easy, just access the website of the following temp-ing agencies. Foreign placement agencies -- ManPower, Kelly, Adecco, Vedior are each recruiting tens of thousands of temporary staff on their payrolls.
Others such as TeamLease has the largest number on its payroll, which has in 2004 crossed Rs 120 crore (Rs 1.20 billion).
Many of these agencies also put out ads as they have about 3,000 open positions on a daily basis. Said Sabharwal, "over 45 per cent of our 14,000-strong temporary staff come through our website."
Today Teamlease hires about 2,000 individuals every month and this figure is not enough to meet the growing demand. Only one thing is there.
These jobs are coming only from the private sector as trade unions are very strong in the public sector and hence even if the management is willing, they cannot even think of hiring temporary staff.
The temporary jobs market is equally a win-win situation for employers. Many a times companies tend to find the person and ask placement agencies to put them on their payrolls in order not to upset the balance in the corporate entity.
Employees at the corporate entity would then not be able to find out what salary the individual hired through the placement agency gets, especially when it is bound to disturb the balance.
With the ability to work one's own hours and still get a premium over what one would earn as a permanent employees with all the perks, today's 50,000-strong temp work force is expected to rise to 14 million in the next five years! Globally, this is a $200 billion industry employing millions of people the world over.