Back in the late 1980s, while in college, I earned pretty decent money (for a student, anyway, about $13/hr, IIRC) doing word processing in NYC via temp agencies. These days, I assume word processing as a career is pretty much dead since everyone has a computer on his/her desk. So do office temps still exist? What to they do? How much do they get paid?
Receptionists, definitely. I don’t know about pay, though. I could ask my daughter who was one recently, up until last year.
Sge was able to parlay that posting into a decent full-time salaried position in the company’s marketing department.
Word processing isn’t dead. Law firms, of which New York has many, employ them, both on staff and on a temporary basis. Granted, it’s a tough economy for the big law firms right now, but they’re still there, and processing lots of words.
Temps make $20-something an hour, depending on experience and type of work. Staff word processors make, say, $62,000-$80,000, depending on a bunch of things – experience, skills, certifications (a Microsoft Office Expert cert is probably worth a few bucks), the firm that hires you, etc.
Friend of mine just started a job as a temp last week. $12/hr., and it’s something about validating hand-written forms that people send in. Guy has a B.A. in math, too; the job market is not kind to people without any work experience right now.
I worked as a temp admin assistant for a year, before they hired me on. They chose me because I had graphic design skills, but I’ve hardly used them.
The company I work for just went through a merger, so we hired a couple of temps to help with the influx of paperwork/support.
I just signed on with a temp agency after being laid off. I’ve been on two interviews, but I’m waiting to hear back on both of them. The first one is an accounts payable position that pays $12/hr, and the second is an administration position that pays $18/hr. They’re both temporary-to-permanent positions, and the hourly rate will be increased if I’m hired on permanently.
Most of the temp jobs I’ve had have had at least some data entry involved (I’ve been a temp for about 15 years now). Accounts payable clerk, accounts receivable clerk, data entry, typing/editing manuals, mailroom, receptionist, customer service, mailouts, photocopying, office assistant, executive assistant, these are all possibilities for office temps.
The rate of pay is hard to say; it might be higher or lower in your city than it is in mine. The duties will also vary, but if you can type and use Word (and Excel), you can probably get a temp job.
I’ll second that. I worked through a temp agency and did “data entry” for a huge insurance company. I put it in quotes because processing the claims usually involved pushing one of 6 buttons over and over, many thousands of times a day.
The temp agency took $2/hr from my pay, so after that I think I made like $12/hr. I took home $360 a week after taxes for 40 hrs so that sounds right. Zero benefits, naturally, despite it being the largest insurance company in the country (world? ).
Not that anyone takes these jobs as their first choice, but here’s what you can look forward to:
We ended up training our replacements and they moved the job to Indiana and paid $8/hr. The worst was that the director, who had opened that branch and been there for 20 years, one day just got a call and they said you’re done. Clean out your desk and be gone in an hour. No notice whatsoever. Heck, often they have guards escort you out. Zero job security.
I know you didn’t ask and no one cares, but anecdote time : it was hard to get the job. I had a bachelors in history and had just graduated. I wanted at least SOME sort of office experience bc all the employers ask for it. After calling like 5 times I finally got a job. I totally didn’t fit in there. I was the only guy and the only one who had been to college, something I was ostracized for. For instance one time I said “the little parts of this job are bad, but overall in the aggregate it’s not bad.” To which my coworker replied “uh, ok there college boy, quit trying to toss out fancy words no one knows to make yourself sound smart.”
Also, for a pot luck I joked that I would bring soylent green and the manager said "oh, that sounds interesting, is that an exotic dish? "
The first day I jokingly asked the girl training me if it were like "Dilbert " . She said "what’s that? " and when I told her she scoffed and said "umm yeah. I don’t watch cartoons because I’m not a baby. "
Sorry, had to vent. I love my current job teaching so much and appreciate it more each day.
I’m really lucky to have gotten on with a temp agency that offers health insurance, and at a really good rate, too. The temp agency that my mom’s employer uses also offers health insurance.
I wonder if this is becoming more common across the industry, or if these two are basically flukes.
Oh yeah, the benefits. There are none, except those required by law in your local area. The agency does take a cut - they charge you out at, say, $20 per hour, and you get $16 of it. The agencies here don’t take it from your pay as such; they send an invoice to the company you work at for the full amount, and you receive the $16 per hour in your weekly paycheques.
I applied at several temp agencies last year when I decided to leave my old career and move back to this city. The only one that didn’t totally skeeve me out has had NOTHING for me.
There was one office that had a big sign by the door that said, in effect, that drugs and weapons were off-limits in their building. It turned out they hired heavy industrial, and a friend of mine who knows more about this than I do said their clientele is mostly people who just got out of prison.
There was another that finally called me more than 6 months after I applied. One of the first things she said to me was, “We can’t find people who actually want to work.” :smack: Really? You wait 6 months to get back to somebody, and wonder why you can’t find anybody?
So, I started a home-based business. Not making any money yet, but at least it keeps me busy.
It doesn’t help that I have a degree that is now pretty much useless in my field, and also prevents me from getting a job doing anything else. I applied for some temporary Christmas jobs, and got NO callbacks, although I understand many of those places got 500 or more applications for every opening, and why would they hire me when they can have someone who’s covered with tattoos and facial piercings?
On a slightly-related note, it is very re-assuring to know that industrial and construction type industries here don’t regularly test their employees for drugs because there would be no workers left to do the work (they only test after there is an incident). 
I’ve found if they don’t call you back immediately, they probably won’t. I’ve always heard you should call them every week, because then they’ll find you a job to make you leave them alone. I’m not sure if that works or not.
A lot of the jobs I’ve seen on Monster and other job sites were really temp agencies. Some of the are upfront about it, some aren’t.
I’m an office temp. I’m doing filing and data entry at this position; at previous assignments, I’ve stuffed envelopes and addressed them for mailings, and typed data into insurance forms. $12/hour. Calling every week for a new assignment is de rigeur for every agency I’ve tried.
I’m just glad this position has gone from 6 months to 18 months-and-counting. Come to think of it, every job I’ve had except for my first started with me working there through a temp agency.
Actually, I’m surprised data entry is still a thing (at least one that’s in large need) due to everything being moved to the web. What sort of data are you entering?
BTW, in case anyone got the wrong impression, I’m not looking for temp work, I was just curious what the industry looked like these days.
I’m updating nursing licensing files with information off of older microfiche. I get the birthdate, school, date of graduation, etc., and enter it into the computer file. My first day here my supervisor apologized for the boredom level. After a couple of years of unemployment, boredom is a lot better than being broke.
Actually, it took them 6 months to just acknowledge that they got my application.
Indeed.com is THE.MOST.USELESS job-searching tool ever. They just get stacks of newspapers and copy the want ads. In my old field, I often saw the same job listed 10 or 20 times.
In addition, those places that are always hiring, and will hire anybody, are that way for a reason: You don’t want to work there.
I should add that my degree is now completely worthless in my field and also prevents me from getting a job doing anything else, because (among other things) it’s in a field that until recently, people almost never left voluntarily.
Forgot to mention that the temp agency I registered at did send me on an interview. It was at a call center, and the place was absolutely filthy and I really didn’t feel safe there, even for the interview. I declined the job, and honestly should have told them the details but didn’t.