The US Bureau of Labor Statistics has released its projections of the 30 fastest-growing careers. Jobs in the healthcare, engineering and financial services fields are all in the mix, with biomedical engineers as the #1 fastest-growing job out there.

Read more here.

Unemployment in Massachusetts hit a two-year low in April. At 7.8% it is well below the national average.  For the seventh consecutive month, Massachusetts added jobs to its economy with 19,500 new jobs added in April.  Read more about the Massachusetts economy’s growth here.

The Massachusetts unemployment rate for March dropped to 8 percent, down from February’s rate of 8.2 percent, according to the state’s Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development.

Massachusetts added 3,200 jobs in March, the sixth straight month of job gains. The largest gain in employment came in the leisure and hospitality sector of the local economy, and the construction sector had the largest growth rate, state officials said.

Sectors losing jobs included government and financial services. The March job gain follows a revised 14,400 jobs gain in February, previously reported as a 15,400 job gain, state officials said.

The national unemployment rate is 8.8 percent. In March 2010, the state’s unemployment rate was 8.7 percent.

The state said more than 3.2 million Massachusetts residents had jobs last month, while about 282,000 were out of work.

This improvement in the unemployment rate validates PSG’s experience; in 2011 we have seen steady increases in hiring from our clients.

As the area’s leading locally based staffing agency, PSG employs close to 1,000 temporary employees on a daily basis.  Some of our folks choose contract work consistently as a career choice, while others do so to stay busy while on school breaks or to fill gaps between permanent positions.  This recent article discusses why more and more people are choosing temporary employment  in our modern economy.

Our temporary employees find many advantages to the flexibility of temporary work, including:

1. Temporary assignments allow you to continue receiving a paycheck while conducting your job search.  Candidates whose ultimate goal is to find a permanent  job look at temping as a way to pay the bills while they are looking for their next long term job.
2. Contract assignments allow our candidates to learn new skills and gain experience for their resume.  The diverse mix of industries that employment agencies work with allow temps who work on various assignments to pick up valuable experience and gain exposure to new software, terminology and business jargon than they would at a steady position within one field.
3. It’s a working interview! The company may not have an opening to fill or the budget to hire you on permanent, but at the very least it is a networking opportunity.  The more people you meet (and impress!), the better for your permanent job search.
4. Flexibility.  Our folks who choose to temp as a career enjoy the flexible work schedules and independence of contract assignments.

What do you think about temporary work as a career option?  What about temp work to fill in some of the gaps of unemployment?  Any success stories through temp work? Please feel free to comment below or email me at mstevenson@psgstaffing.com.