Can You Make Good Money Working As A Temp?

Back in the late 1980’s I was accused of stealing money from the pizza place I was working at. I had been promoted to manager and had hired three people so far, none of which was met with approval by the owner. She even believed the young lady I had hired was pregnant. Not wanting to pay maternity leave she quickly fired all three, with me not far behind on the stealing charges. I am not a thief and had stolen nothing from the restaurant but I suppose I was being made an example out of for the other managers and employees because of my hiring decisions. Accusing me of theft just sealed the deal. I remember for several years after of word getting back to me about how terrible I was at the job, with the stories growing until I became known as sort of a pizza manager version of The Bad Lieutenant. If you have ever been accused of something you did not do you know how that felt.

I turned to Manpower to help me find a job. I ended up working through them at something like 18 different assignments for around a year. I dug ditches, performed a lot of warehouse work and even helped a Canadian auction company prep a factory for liquidation. It was fairly hard work but I was young and didn’t mind too much. At my last assignment they ended up hiring me and I worked there for over 18 years.

The money I made was always above minimum wage, usually by several dollars. There were no benefits that I remember, although there might have been some kind of minuscule vacation point system. The money was good enough for me at the time, but I was relieved at getting permanent work when I did because the stork was circling our house carrying a little bundle of joy.

Flash forward to today. My nephew Toby has worked for temp agencies off and on for several years, including during The Great Recession. His opinion is you can make pretty good money, but you usually still have no benefits and the job can end at any time, which is of course the nature of the beast.

I am interested in your opinion on the subject. Do you agree that you can make good money working as a temp? What has been your experience?