By Rocky Wilson


Of the Journal of Business


Spokane-area temporary-help and staffing agencies say theyre scrambling to find enough workers to fill demand fueled by an expanding economy here.


Its an employees market, says Julie Prafke, president and CEO of Spokane Valley-based Humanix Corp. The demand for workers in the Spokane-Coeur dAlene area currently exceeds the work force here, says Prafke, whose company currently employs about 600 workers scattered at a host of companies here.


If you want to work, you can find a job, she says. We could probably use 100 more people here each week.


Demand is so high, Prafke says, that staffing agencies arent as worried about an applicants previous experience and training as they are about his or her willingness to work hard.


Most companies are willing to train workers if they have the right work ethic, she says.


Steve McKnight, area manager of Labor Finders of the Greater Northwest, which opened recently in the Spokane Valley, agrees.


Ninety percent of what were looking for is attitude, says McKnight. If you dont have the right guy in the right job, you dont have anything.


The Labor Finders office, which is a franchise of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.-based Labor Finders International Inc., is one of at least two new agencies to join the temp-help fray here in the past two months. Another one is Eugene, Ore.-based Personnel Source Inc.


The temp-help industry long has been viewed as a barometer of a local economy. Prafke says business was crazy in the late 1990s, when the economy was booming and staffing agencies ran out of workers to meet demand. Then, she says, the staffing industry here tanked for a couple years when the economy went sour.


It started to come back at the end of 2004, and has continued to come back strong, Prafke says.


Tom Droz, a Spokane franchise owner of Manpower, part of the Manpower Inc. network, which was launched in Milwaukee in 1948, foresees a more significant employee shortage within the next 10 years that he believes agencies wont be able to combat.


With baby boomers retiring and the birth rate down, there will soon be a shortage of people to do all kinds of jobs at all kinds of levels, he says. Without immigration in Europe, their economy would be contracting. Its already hard to find entry-level people, and their salary expectations are higher than they were in the past.


Temporary-help agencies find individuals who need work and place them, usually on a temporary basis, in jobs at client companies. Most such agencies pay the wages, employment taxes, and workers compensation for the people they place, but employers cover those costs and pay an administrative fee to the agency.


Prafke argues that the term temporary help is outdated considering that 70 percent to 80 percent of the workers Humanix places at companies here end up becoming full-time employees of the company, often within 90 days. For that reason, she calls Humanix a staffing agency.


Droz says full-time placements are more the norm now, but adds that even in such cases, workers remain employees of Manpower for an average of nine months, and sometimes as long as three years.


We used to have a lot more part-time jobs than we do now, he says. Now, its very rare to have four-hour jobs to move boxes in warehouses.


Droz says that almost 70 percent of the workers Manpower places here are categorized as industrial workers, and the rest are split between professional workers and clerical workers. The mix at Humanix includes about 65 percent industrial workers and about 35 percent office-related workers, Prafke says.


Finding workers is a competitive endeavor for agencies. Droz says about 80 percent of the roughly 250 workers that Manpower places at any given time are recruited through word-of-mouth. Humanix pays its workers $100 for each referral they make for a recruit who works at least one month for the agency, Prafke says. McKnight says that how Labor Finders attracts workers is a trade secret.


Competitive market


Labor Finders and Personnel Source, the two new players here, arent intimidated about entering a market where so many agenciesabout 30 in the Spokane-Coeur dAlene areaalready are competing to supply whats described as a shortage of available workers.


Brenda Edwards, a regional manager for 31-year-old Personnel Source, says that company entered the market because a client it has in Medford, Ore., Lamination Technology Industries, opened an office in Liberty Lake and was having trouble finding employees.


She says she made multiple visits to Spokane and found it to be a booming community with a terrific business atmosphere. The companys new branch here is its 10th overall and third in Washington.


Edwards says temp-help agencies fill a need from both the employers and employees perspective.


An employer can just give us one phone call. Otherwise, they might be swamped with resumes.


Similarly, she says, people who are looking for work usually cant walk into a business, talk with the manager, and walk out with a job.


Prafke says Humanix used to train prospective workers to make them more employable, but stopped doing that early this year because of the abundance of training available on line and because businesses tend now to want to train employees themselves.


Droz says Manpower also has scaled back its training significantly.


People in general are a lot more computer-literate than previously, he says.


Humanix and other agencies still help workers with skills such as resume preparation, safety, and work habits, Prafke says. They also counsel candidates on how to make a positive first impression, sometimes even giving tips on personal hygiene, she says.


Contact Rocky Wilson at (509) 344-1264 or via e-mail at rockyw@spokanejournal.com.