Everyone knows that work in America is not what it used to be. Layoffs, outsourcing, contingent work, disappearing career laddersùthese are the new workplace realities for an increasing number of people. In The Temp Economy, Erin Hatton takes one of the best-known icons of the new economyùthe temp industryùand finds that it is more than just a symbol of this degradation of work. The temp industry itself played an active role in this declineùand not just for temps. Industry leaders started by inventing the "Kelly Girl," exploiting 1950's gender stereotypes to justify low wages, minimal benefits, and chronic job insecurity. But they did not stop with Kelly Girls. From selling human "business machines" in the 1970's to "permatemps" in the 1990's, the temp industry relentlessly portrayed workers as profit-busting liabilities that hurt companies' bottom lines even in boom times. These campaigns not only legitimized the widespread use of temps, they also laid the cultural groundwork for a new corporate ethos of ruthless cost cutting and mass layoffs.<BR><BR>Drawn from a vast historical record of industry documents, The Temp Economy is a for anyone interested in the temp industry or the degradation of work in postwar America.