More and more Highly Qualified Workers Are in Temporary Work
Temporary work is something for certain lower skilled jobs but surely not for highly skilled professionals? Wrong! The labor market for temporary workers is on the move. More and more highly qualified professionals are working temporarily – for a variety of reasons.
Flexibility is becoming increasingly important – not just for the employers, but also for the working population and the economy as such. Highly qualified workers are faced with the question of how they can translate their need for flexibility and independence into an adequate working relationship. Temporary work can be an answer. Today, the market for highly qualified temporary workers is still comparatively small and exclusive, but it is growing strongly. Within 10 years, the percentage of temporary employees with a university degree increased from 13 to 28%.
Swisstaffing, the Association of Swiss Recruitment Agencies, wanted to find out what motivates highly skilled professionals to work on a temporary basis and what the benefits are that result. For this purpose, gfs-zurich conducted a survey of 603 highly qualified flexworkers. The results are published by Swissstaffing in the White Paper “Flexwork: More and more Highly Qualified Workers Are in Temporary Work”.
Gain Experience, Avoid Gaps in Social Security
What are the main reasons for a highly qualified professional to choose a temporary job? Some are more obvious than others. That many see greater chances of finding a permanent position if they take on a temporary one instead of being unemployed is not surprising. These professionals do not necessarily prefer a temporary employment over a permanent one. Not surprising, too, is that many temporary workers expect to gain work experience in a temporary job. Many professionals appreciate the possibility to gain as much experience in temporary jobs in different companies and sectors as possible before settling for a permanent position.
Other advantages are not so self-evident. Many professionals, for example, see it as a great advantage that they do not have to actively search for suitable assignments themselves. They are more than happy that the recruitment agency takes this task off their hands. Others want to avoid gaps in social security and choose temporary employment rather than self-employment. This way they also avoid the risk of being false self employed (“scheinselbständig”).
You decide
A good work-life-balance is increasingly important for professionals, especially from the younger generations. While achieving this can be very difficult when one is employed or self-employed, temporary employment offers a lot of flexibility to reconcile the career and private life. Professionals decide on their own when they would like to work more, when less, and when not. This gives them entrepreneurial freedom to a certain degree.
Many professionals appreciate the fact that they can better contribute their know-how and expertise when they have different temporary jobs. They are also happy that they are less involved in internal company policy processes, which often consume much energy and time. Temporary employees can instead fully concentrate on the job at hand.
All the benefits
Highly qualified employees do not have to forego continuing education. They can profit from further education offers of Temptraining while they are in a temporary job.
The Swissstaffing White Paper suggests that flexwork is financially beneficial to highly qualified workers, they might even be paid more than employees with permanent positions.
For the employers highly qualified temporary workers are also very good news. Employing them is another opportunity to address the skills shortage. And they can source (external) expertise quickly and optimize on costs.
So flexwork is a classic win-win-situation for both, highly qualified professionals and employers.
