"Here" is the Grand Rapids office an employment agency called Staffing Inc.. The first thing you notice about this place is an unusual sign on the door. It reads: Now Hiring. Then inside, you hear this:
EASLICK: You'll be required to place the parts on a machine, press a button to activate the machine, and remove the parts to inspect them, okay?
Tiffany Easlick is briefing a new hire on her new … temporary … post.
DAVIDSON: So it sounds like you just got a job… SHERWOOD: Yep I did! (Laughs) Pretty excited.
Katie Sherwood says it only took her two weeks. Her little giggle is a far cry from the steady drumbeat of dire job numbers we've all heard. Shannon Burkel is Vice President of Sales for Staffing Inc. and from her perspective….
BURKEL: There are tons of jobs.
Burkel says the business of matching temps with manufacturers is better than it's been for the last ten years.
BURKEL: We are a leading indicator. The first to fall and the, the first to climb out.
Same goes for Stacey Bigelow's firm on the other side of the state.
BIGELOW: We've doubled our staff in the last year. I mean it's nuts, but it's taking longer to find people. You know, our job boards are full. Every day, they're full.
Bigelow says her company … Advance Staffing Solutions … is on track to have its biggest year ever. So what's going on here?
Well, the demand for temps is partly due to the mass layoffs of the economic crisis. Some manufacturers cut deeply into their core staffs … so deeply that as hiring resumes, they're really starting from the ground up. And Shannon Burkel says now they're building in a buffer of temporary workers.
BURKEL: The hopes are, with little bumps in the economy, they never have to reach into their core staff again. And go through that financial and emotional pain that they had to.
Plus a lot of companies are just skittish about making permanent hires while the economy is so uncertain. They want to see demonstrated skills and they want to know the work will last. Burkel says this cautiousness is turning trial-for-hire into THE route to a permanent manufacturing job.
Already this year, about 400 of Burkel's temps have been hired permanently by companies like this.
WATSON: These are presses basically perforating the steel, punching holes in it.
Rick Watson is president of Beverlin Manufacturing in Grand Rapids. The company specializes in perforated tubing. Watson always tries out potential hires as temps first … he says it's the best way to ensure a good marriage.
WATSON: A lot of companies are hiring all their prospective employees through temp agencies. Not just what used to be blue collar. Now it's, it's technical people, it's professional people, the full gamut of people.
But finding that full gamut of employees is the real challenge. Staffing professionals say there just aren't enough people coming through the door with up-to-date technical skills. So, not enough experienced welders, not enough high end machine operators and repairmen. Stacy Bigelow of Advance Staffing Solutions says she doesn't care what the unemployment figures say: There's a labor shortage.
BIGELOW: I think we've been pushing our kids to go to college for so many years that they're not in these apprenticeship programs or any of these trades. So these people are very hard to find.
That's a sentiment echoed by manufacturers across the region - and it's a problem that may persist even if job opportunities continue to rise. For Changing Gears, I'm Kate Davidson...
