Temporary employment or temporary work refers to the scenario in which the employee is envisioned to leave the employer after a specific or unspecified time frame. Temporary staff are often referred to as “contractual”, “seasonal staff”, “interim staff”, “casual staff”, “freelance”. The term temporary is often abbreviated to “temp”. In some circumstances temporary employees, notably in the white-collar sectors such as law, accounting and engineering refer to themselves as consultants.
Depending upon the circumstance temporary employees can work part time or full time depending on the circumstance. In some temporary employees get benefits (such as holiday pay and sick pay. However these benefits are typically reserved for full time employees.
Temporary workers are often employed in work that has a cyclical characteristic necessitating regular changes to staffing levels.
A temporary agency or recruitment agency source temporary workers and try to provide them with a steady stream of work. Companies contract recruitment agencies to provide them with temporary employees for a numerous reasons and for a huge variety of assignments. Permanent positions often become available to the temporary employee.
Companies seeking to employ a candidate on a temporary basis usually outsource this to a recruitment agency. Traditionally temporary agencies tend to specialise in the placement of workers and recruitment agencies tend to specialise in the placements of permanent staff. However temporary staff are often offered permanent positions, and permanent staff are often employed on a try before you buy basis. often a recruitment agency or a staffing agency will place both temporary an permanent staff.