This post is a little more technical … Temporary Help From the BLS report : Within professional and business services, employment continued to increase in temporary help services (+21,000). Employment in temporary help has risen by 379,000 since a recent low in September 2009. The following graph was used early this year as the basis for some optimistic employment forecasts. This graph is a little complicated. The red line is the three month average change in temporary help services (left axis). This is shifted four months into the future. The blue line (right axis) is the three month average change in total employment (excluding temporary help services). Unfortunately the data on temporary help services only goes back to 1990, but it does appear that temporary help leads employment by about four months. The thinking is that before companies hire permanent employees following a recession, employers will first increase the hours worked of current employees (hours worked decreased slightly in June) and also hire temporary employees.

Read more here – Employment Report: Temporary Help and Diffusion Index