Analysis of the national employment figures just released indicates a slowdown in hiring, as the recovery makes slow headway, according to a new report released by the Conference Board.   There are a fair number of contributing factors, but the sum total is that there’s no pronounced, steady and strong uptick happening yet.

“Employment growth has been slow lately, and the employment trends index suggests that it may slow even further this fall,” said Gad Levanon, associate director. “However, we still expect job growth rather than an outright decline in the next several months.”

Temporary hiring showed signs of life, however, that bode well for the long term prospects of the rest of the economy, at least according to analysis by the Labor Department.

Temporary employment rose as well. It’s often considered a sign of future growth because employers will hire temporary workers as a recovery takes hold and then eventually hire new, full-time staff.

It may be a sign of the difficult times we’ve been through of late: a recent poll indicates that 23% of employers are seeing internship applications from mature, experienced workers, people who are pursuing the same positions as college students.  Internships obviously provide jobseekers with a way to “audition” for permanent roles, and give them a chance to pick up new experience and skills.  Other indications from the survey?

Regardless of applicants’ ages, more than one-quarter (27 percent) of employers said they plan to hire interns during the remainder of 2010 to help support workloads. Fourteen percent said they anticipate hiring paid interns, while 7 percent said they won’t be paying their interns. An additional 5 percent said they will hire both paid and unpaid interns. Fifty-three percent of employers said they plan to pay interns $10 or more per hour, while 5 percent said they will pay $25 or more per hour.

Let’s be clear about the considerable distinctions between internships and temporary or contingent hiring: the latter usually require specific, established skills that are put to the job immediately tackling very imminent challenges.  Internships can provide support for permanent staff, but almost always not in the kind of jobs that are critical to a company’s core success.  Often, as the survey goes on to indicate, they’re in maintenance or errand-heavy roles, where they’re peripheral to real responsibilities.

Based on our own experience at North Bridge and some of the best practices at large in the recruitment and staffing industry, these are some pretty worthy tips for any organization looking to bring on temporary or contingent employees.

One good rule of thumb, to start?  Approach temp hiring with the same standards and expectations you’d have in mind if you were looking for permanent employees.  Your business deserves the best possible people on staff, regardless of how long they’ll be on the team!

1. Know thy market: the depth of talent in a given category can vary greatly market-to-market; a national surplus of widget engineers doesn’t necessarily mean your area has the same profile.  Work with your staffing firm to make sure you know the real availability of the types of role players you need, or may soon need, so you’ve got a true picture of how long it will take to land the talent you want so you can project accordingly.
2. Be precise with your recruiting firm in terms of skillsets you need, and the salary range you’ll offer.  That will obviously help narrow the field to candidates you can really afford – and will save you considerable time, of course.
3. Move it or lose it, because even in times like these, the best candidates go first – and you’d better be prepared to get in front of them quickly and decisively, whether they’re temporary or permanent hires.
4. Set benchmarks for what constitutes success for your temps, just as surely as you would for a full-time hire.  Measure their contribution: it’s surprising how many businesses think there’s some sort of efficiency in throwing people at a task or problem simply because they’re temporaries.  It’s still money ill-spent if you’re not auditing results.
5. Ask around: get perspective from others in the organization about how a temp could be put to work on its behalf.  There may be needs beyond the obvious assignment where an interim hire could make an impact, especially if they’ve got specific expertise that could benefit different facets of your enterprise.
6. Let the recruiter inside your organization, so they can have a good handle on its organization, culture, expectations and projects.  The time you spend indoctrinating a recruiter will pay off in better candidates.
7. Vette your recruiters thoroughly, because just as in any business, there are good and not-so-good providers out there.  There’s absolutely no substitute for the due diligence and quality of service you clearly find in a good recruiter – and they should be proud to offer up referrals who’ll testify to that!

This forecast, done by the the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, projects what some of the hot job categories may be in the decade to come.  Science and medicine, especially in  biomedical specializations, are going to be the big growth areas for future employment — with an impressive projected 72% growth rate from 2008 to 2018!

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No surprise, in light of recent events: there’s projected to be a strong increase in the demand for financial examiners who can help businesses navigate financials and securities laws.

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On wages, there’s good news for these future workers:

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One particularly heartening piece of news involves wages: the previous fastest-growing jobs forecast showed just four of the 10 jobs had high wages. The 2018 forecast, by contrast, lists six jobs that pay more than $70,000 per year. If you’re interested in health care, there’s lots of opportunity for you ahead — eight of the top 10 occupy some niche in the field.

In the past three months, more people quit their jobs than were laid off…and it’s a good sign for the economy that it’s happening. As recruitment and jobs experts who spoke with The Christian Science Monitor pointed out…

In general, that’s a sign of better economic times,” says Donald Siegel, dean of the school of business at the University at Albany, part of the State University of New York. “I interpret it as a sign of an improving job market … when people feel confident enough to quit their jobs.

The jobs market has improved, but it’s still no walk in the park for college graduates.   One survey found that slightly over 24% of grads had a job waiting for them – up from 19% the year before.

Much of that hiring is apparently not permanent, as firms are still treading carefully: temporary and contract hires make up a fair share of the new jobs grads are finding.

As one graduate put it, “The tendency that I’ve seen among my friends is for someone to get a job, but it’s a yearlong contract for a project.  Then they expect to lay off the people they hired for the project, so within the year they’re going to be looking again for another job.”

These grads may be in the vanguard of a new model for the job market, where “permalancing” and conditional employment is more the norm, rather than the exception.  The jobs market of tomorrow may demand more and more flexibility of this kind from employers and employees alike, which will make the expertise of recruiters and staffing professionals more crucial than ever, linking the best prospects, companies, screening processes and connective technologies together like never before.