Staffing agencies here say they're seeing strong growth in demand for temporary help, but not for permanent hires.

Provisional Staffing Services Inc., of Spokane, which does business as Provisional Recruiting + Staffing and recruits applicants for professional and office positions, says its placements for temporary help so far this year are up 35 percent over the first three quarters of last year.

"There's been incredible improvement on the temp side," says Erick Fahsholtz, a Provisional recruiter. "It started in spring and summer, and fall has been really strong."

While he says the company is placing temporary employees at its pre-recession level, employer demand for permanent hires hasn't rebounded yet.

"Direct hiring is still very slow," Fahsholtz says.

Christina Gross, a recruiter at Milwaukee-based employment service Manpower Inc.'s Spokane franchise office, says many of its longtime clients who didn't hire through the agency last year are starting to need temporary help.

"We're definitely having a better year than last year," Gross says. "We're seeing an increase in manufacturing, administrative, and clerical openings."

Even employers with immediate staffing needs feel uncertain about whether the economy is poised for sustained improvement, she says.

"Employers are looking at us now because they can't forecast what their need will be permanently," Gross says. "It's a good way to get work that they need done without having to make a permanent commitment."

Nancy Nelson, president and CEO of longtime Spokane staffing service Humanix Corp., says manufacturing is leading the charge in the recovery.

"Inventories are depleted, and companies need to manufacture products to replace them," Nelson says. "It affects the whole supply chain."

She also says that many Inland Northwest manufacturers have strong short-term production forecasts, but uncertain long-term forecasts. A few, though, have big orders that involve multiyear contracts, she says.

Some openings are for project-level, temporary positions. "The companies are not quite ready to commit to permanent employment," Nelson says.

Skilled positions that employers need to fill include electronic assembly, solderers, injection-mold operators, and computer numeric controlled (CNC) machine operators.

Humanix is optimistic that the economic recovery will continue, and clients soon will need more permanent workers, Nelson says.

"We brought on a permanent-placement manager anticipating the economic recovery and staffing needs of companies," she says. "We're probably ahead of the curve a bit, but we want to be ready to go."

Gross says Manpower is handling increases in requests for workers in skilled trades, such as machinists and materials handlers. Machinists fabricate metal components for the assembly of machines, and materials handlers load, unload, and move products and bulk material into and out of warehouses, rail cars, trucks, and trailers.

Fahsholtz says Provisional also is seeing across-the-board increases in requests for temporary help in accounting, health-care, customer-service, and administrative positions.

"Everyone has cut to the bone and now needs help," he says.

Fahsholtz says jobs in demand by its clients include tax accountants, legal assistants, radiology technicians, and nurses with operating-room experience.

Most positions Provisional has filled recently, though temporary, have involved full-time hours, he says.

While staffing agencies are competing for employer clients, for the most part, the agencies have plenty of applicants.

"For a really good job, we might have 300 applicants," Fahsholtz says. "There are a lot of unemployed people out there."

Nelson says Humanix also has a lot of applicants to pick from for jobs that don't require a lot of experience or specific skills. Still, not every job is easy to fill, Fahsholtz says.

"There always is and always will be a shortage of skilled people" for certain positions, he says, adding that a senior tax manager with experience in federal securities regulations, for example, "is hard to come by."

The few openings for permanent positions, however, tend to require precise training and skills, and, in some cases, few applicants qualify to fill them.

"There still are companies looking for candidates with very specific skill sets who may or may not be in this area," Nelson says.

For instance, she says, a locally owned manufacturing company here hasn't been able to find anyone with the right skills to operate its CNC machine, which is a fabrication tool that can be programmed to cut, bend, and mill metal materials.

"The position requires such a specific skill set that the client is doing a national search," she says.

Gross says Manpower, like many businesses, has had to tighten its belt because of the recession.

"Our staff is holding its own," she says. "We're about the same as last year. In the past, we've had more staff, but, in all, we feel we're on a positive note."

Provisional has maintained a core staff of six employees through the recession, Fahsholtz says. "We have supplemental staff of up to two people that fluctuates depending on the workload," he says.