America's largest private employer now only hiring temps

In another sign that America's economic "recovery" isn't as great as Washington wants you to think, Reuters reports that Walmart -- the world's single largest private employer -- has adopted a new hiring strategy that limits future hires to temporary employment.

A Reuters survey of 52 stores run by the largest U.S. private employer in the past month, including one in every U.S. state, showed that 27 were hiring only temps, 20 were hiring a combination of regular full, part-time and temp jobs, and five were not hiring at all. The survey was based on interviews with managers, sales staff and human resource department employees at the stores.

The new hiring policy is to ensure "we are staffed appropriately," when the stores are busiest and is not a cost-cutting move, said company spokesman David Tovar. Temporary workers, he said, are paid the same starting pay as other workers.

Using temporary workers enables the company to have adequate staff on busy weeknights and weekends without having to hire additional full-time staff.

Of course, hiring fewer full-time staffers also means having fewer health care insurance plans to pay for in accordance with Obamacare.  But Tovar insists the move isn't related to the health care law.  He did, however, acknowledge that it could take a year or more for temp workers to receive any health benefits.

In other sad economic news, Matt Berman at the National Journal offers "the one chart that shows just how stuck our economy is":

The economy added 175,000 jobs last month, but at the rate things are going, it would take almost a decade to get back to prerecession employment levels.  [...]

The Economic Policy Institute looks at the number and sees that "the main problem in the labor market is a broad-based lack of demand for workers—and not, as is often claimed, available workers lacking the skills needed for the sectors with job openings."...