news-record.com

GREENSBORO — Triad employment agencies say local businesses are hiring more temporary workers — which suggests companies are planning to grow.

It may be only a few hundred or a few thousand workers among the dozens of temporary services companies.

But two companies that specialize in recruiting and temporary labor are adding to their own staffs so they can handle the demand for workers.

“Our overall volume is probably up 40 percent from 2010 to 2011,” said Gary Graham Jr., president of Graham Personnel Services.

The company has, at any given time, about 450 people in various temporary positions. He expects that to grow by another 100 jobs by the end of the year.

“That hasn’t been just seasonal here, that’s been a growing trend,” he said.

Financial analysts and information technology experts are among those in heavy demand, he said.

That puts Greg Silverthorne in the sweet spot.

Fifteen months ago, this 49-year-old Brown University graduate with a Hofstra University MBA found himself unemployed after a temporary assignment with a Martinsville company.

Silverthorne now has a six-month assignment at Syngenta as an accounting expert who can troubleshoot when glitches appear in financial software.

Like many temporary workers, he earns wages but no benefits.

But Silverthorne isn’t using the assignment as a chance to relax. Before he landed the job, he created the Dare to Work Ministry at Oak Ridge First Baptist Church to tell others what they can gain from group support as they struggle to find jobs.

He won’t be dropping that ministry just because he has a job. It keeps him inspired, Silverthorne said.

“It’s God’s way of making me push the rock even though I can’t move it,” he said. “I’m learning a lot by pushing the rock.”

It also keeps him strong for his personal job search, Silverthorne said.

He got the interview for his current job with a half-hour’s notice and he remembered what search groups have taught him.

“A bad attitude will kill you,” he said. “You need to block it out. If you’re desperate, even if you have reason to be so, you’re dead.”

Local businesses are wary of hiring workers in times of economic uncertainty. But they clearly need extra work done, Graham said, or they wouldn’t be calling.

Skilled manufacturing, aerospace, biotechnology and logistics are among growing fields.

“Anybody with a secondary degree in health care, finance, accounting technology engineering, I would say that the unemployment rate there is 1 percent heading toward a negative,” Graham said.

He said 90 percent of temporary workers end up with permanent positions, a figure that was only 70 percent before the recession.

Businesses also are looking for permanent workers a little more aggressively, said David Moff, CEO of The HR Group.

Moff’s company recruits permanent workers, and he’s seeing inch-by-inch progress in hiring.

“I don’t want to say that the floodgates are going to open … but we’re going to continue to see steady progress,” Moff said.

He can’t say when this region will recover from American Express’ plans to lay off up to 1,500 people when it closes its call center later this year. But with optimism for his company’s growth, Moff has hired two sales people and promoted Mike Summers to a new position as vice president of recruiting and business development.

Graham has hired six new people to manage demand for workers.

As hiring grows, however, Graham is adamant that local workers must keep their skills fresh.

“The business world ... is not forgiving if you’re not willing to change and adapt. It will leave you behind,” Graham said.

Silverthorne agrees.

“If I can’t do it, no one can.”

Contact Richard M. Barron at 373-7371 or richard.barron@news-record.com