A successful career woman pays the ultimate price for having it all in this “outstanding psychological thriller” by the USA Today bestselling author (Publishers Weekly, starred review). With a dream career and a handsome screenwriter husband, TV producer Carrie is at the top of her game. Now with a baby on the way, she will truly have it all—she'll just need someone to fill in for her while she's on maternity leave. A young script editor with some missteps in her past, Emma is determined to make the most of the temporary position. She wants a life just like Carries . . . exactly like Carries. Carrie has given up more than anyone knows to get to the top of a ruthless business. But with Emma filling in for her at the office, her perfect life starts to unravel. Her bank account is inexplicably overdrawn, her husband seems strangely distant and colleagues are all too happy to take Emma's creative direction. Carrie finds herself dying to get back to work . . . until a letter left at her door changes everything.

Winner of the William G. Bowen Prize Named a "Triumph" of 2018 by New York Times Book Critics Shortlisted for the 800-CEO-READ Business Book Award The untold history of the surprising origins of the "gig economy"--how deliberate decisions made by consultants and CEOs in the 50s and 60s upended the stability of the workplace and the lives of millions of working men and women in postwar America. Over the last fifty years, job security has cratered as the institutions that insulated us from volatility have been swept aside by a fervent belief in the market. Now every working person in America today asks the same question: how secure is my job? In Temp, Louis Hyman explains how we got to this precarious position and traces the real origins of the gig economy: it was created not by accident, but by choice through a series of deliberate decisions by consultants and CEOs--long before the digital revolution. Uber is not the cause of insecurity and inequality in our country, and neither is the rest of the gig economy. The answer to our growing problems goes deeper than apps, further back than outsourcing and downsizing, and contests the most essential assumptions we have about how our businesses should work. As we make choices about the future, we need to understand our past.

In Temporary, a young woman’s workplace is the size of the world. She fills increasingly bizarre placements in search of steadiness, connection, and something, at last, to call her own. Whether it’s shining an endless closet of shoes, swabbing the deck of a pirate ship, assisting an assassin, or filling in for the Chairman of the Board, for the mythical Temporary, “there is nothing more personal than doing your job.” This riveting quest, at once hilarious and profound, will resonate with anyone who has ever done their best at work, even when the work is only temporary.

groundwork for a new corporate ethos of ruthless cost cutting and mass layoffs. --

Temporary employment is on the rise. In uncertain economic times, many businesses view employing temps as a cost-effective strategy to both maximize productivity and foster flexibility. Being noticed and ultimately hired by clients in this increasingly competitive market requires staffing services and temps to perform at new levels of excellence. Working with staffing service firms and temps for over 20 years, Cathy A. Reilly has learned a thing or two about the staffing industry and the bottom line: what temporary employment success looks like to a client. No matter where you are in this three-sided working arrangement, The Temp Factor: The Complete Guide to Temporary Employment for Staffing Services, Clients, and Temps is the most comprehensive and innovative manual on temporary employment you will find. This up-to-date book is written for anyone working within the temporary employment industry, whether you are just starting out or possess years of experience. It provides readers with basic information to build upon, fresh perspectives, and better solutions to meet today's business staffing challenges. The Temp Factor is a valuable resource for temporary employees, clients and staffing services seeking to achieve distinction and a competitive edge.

If you are looking for work, consider temporary employment a valuable source of job opportunities. As a temp, you can increase job skills and work experience, expand business networks, strengthen your resume, and avoid gaps in employment, all while being paid. Quite often, temp work can be a "job audition" because it puts temps in front of hiring managers and decision makers for days, weeks, or even months at a time while on job assignments. The Temp Factor for Job Seekers: The Job Seeker's Guide to Temporary Employment presents how this job search strategy may get you back to work faster. Becoming a temp guarantees what a resume cannot: face time inside the doors of potential employers. With over 20 years of experience working with staffing service firms and temps, Cathy A. Reilly teaches you about the advantages, challenges, pay, and benefits of being a temp. She explains what clients and staffing services look for in effective temps, how to find and apply to a high quality staffing service, and how to distinguish yourself from the crowd. Corporate culture, job performance issues, temp assessment tools, interview questions (and answers that have impact), real-world insights and "must knows" are included in this comprehensive manual.

Temporary agencies place approximately two and a half million people in jobs each day in the United States. Every year, about twelve million people use these placement agencies to find temporary work. Many Americans, even those who desire permanent jobs, decide to enter the labor market through the portal of temporary agencies. Compared with the post-World War II era, when it was a marginal labor practice, temporary employment is today an entrenched feature of jobs and labor markets. How have temporary employment relationships become so widespread and normalized? In The Good Temp, Vicki Smith and Esther B. Neuwirth provide some novel answers to this question. Their provocative analysis is based on an insider's view of the interior dynamics of a temporary help agency in Silicon Valley. It incorporates a historical perspective on the rise of the temporary help service industry. Smith and Neuwirth document how this powerful industry not only created a new market for temporary labor but also played a fundamental role in the erosion of the permanent employment model. They analyze how agencies themselves came to manufacture and market this reinvented product-the good temp, an employee who is effective and efficient, committed, and sometimes preferable to a permanent staff member. Joining extensive participant observation data with historical analysis, The Good Temp contains some surprising findings about temporary employment today and fills a significant gap in our understanding of this important labor relationship.