A Tax Credit Was Meant to Help Marginalized Workers Get Permanent Jobs. Instead It's Subsidizing Tem

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Terri Gerstein
@TerriGerstein
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Wild. The US gov't gives hundreds of millions of $ in tax credits to temp agencies, for giving ppl jobs that are often low-road/short-term/dead-end. Workers & the public deserve better. Read this extraordinary piece of journalism that should change policy

propublica.org
A Tax Credit Was Meant to Help Marginalized Workers Get Permanent Jobs. Instead It’s Subsidizing...
The government gives hundreds of millions of dollars in Work Opportunity Tax Credits to temp agencies, even if the jobs they offer don’t lead to permanent employment. Many top recipients of the...
10:28 AM · Aug 23, 2022

https://www.propublica.org/article/work-opportunity-tax-credit-temp-permanent-employment

DeMond Bush was living in his friend’s basement in Louisville, Kentucky, in 2017 when he heard about a job that could help him get beyond his past. Since getting out of prison two years earlier, the 43-year-old had cycled through day labor and temp work but hadn’t been able to find anything steady. He’d spent more than two decades behind bars for a violent crime that he was charged with as a teenager. During that time, he’d done everything he could to prepare for a better life — earning several associate’s degrees, learning a trade and performing in nine Shakespeare plays. But the world outside didn’t seem to care.

So when the temp agency Express Employment Professionals offered him a “temp-to-hire” position at a warehouse run by Tennant Company, a cleaning products manufacturer, Bush couldn’t help but get his hopes up. Bush said Express wasn’t concerned by his record and told him that if he worked 90 days as a temp, he’d be considered for a job working directly for Tennant with higher wages, plus benefits and sick days.

“I’m thinking, ‘I’m going in and prove myself, work hard, they’ll judge me based off that,’” said Bush, who was born in New Jersey but occasionally slips into a Southern lilt.

His plan seemed to be working: Bush said his managers told him he was doing a good job and he’d likely get hired. That changed on his 90th day on the job, after Tennant ran a background check, Bush said. In an instant, Bush’s months of hard work vanished. When he showed up for work the next day, a company representative escorted him off the property.

*snip*

[Skittles]

1. I hope Mr. Bush gets his chance

he sounds like someone who has done everything right post-prison but cannot catch a break

[WA-03 Democrat]

3. Me too! N/t

[Metaphorical]

2. I have nothing good to say for most temp agencies

They have, for the most part, morphed into "recruiting" companies that other companies use to avoid the process of actually hiring people directly. Many use offshore labor to staff the "recruiters" who are fed job openings electronically, then "hire" these people directly at below market rates as contingency labor with minimal benefits and no real control over their jobs. The actual recruiters are paid peanuts, while the staffing company owners (typically foreign) make out like bandits.

More than likely, if you're contacted by a "recruiter", this is what you're actually running into. There are good recruiters - I've worked with a few over the years that I would swear by, but I've told most of students to steer clear of them, do some research, then make use of their own network or apply directly to the company.