Happy holidays! Here's a temp job

Here’s another piece of good news on the temporary job front: A new survey says more hiring managers plan to add more seasonal employees this year than in the past two years.

Still, seasonal employment is not expected to reach the levels we saw in 2007, on the eve of the recession.

In its third annual survey, SnagAJob.com said 50 percent of hiring managers responsible for adding seasonal workers plan to do so. That’s up from 47 percent in 2009 and 43 percent in 2008.

In 2007, 51 percent of managers added seasonal employees.

On average, hiring managers expect to hire 3.9 seasonal workers, up from 3.1 in 2009 and 3.7 in 2008. In 2007, hiring managers added 5.6 seasonal workers on average.

The average hourly pay for seasonal employees also got a slight boost, to $10.60 an hour. That’s up from $10.40 an hour in 2009 and $10 an hour in 2008. The survey did not have average wages from 2007.

The data are based on a survey from Ipsos Public Affairs, which polled around 1,000 people responsible for hiring seasonal hourly employees in fields including retail, restaurants, customer service and healthcare.

Of course, a seasonal temporary job is not as good as a permanent one. Still, even a temporary reprieve should be welcome for many of the millions of Americans who are unemployed, and especially those who have exhausted unemployment benefits.

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