“The ranks of contingent workers, including the self-employed, temporary hires and independent contractors, swelled to 40 percent of the workforce in 2010, from 31 percent in 2005, the Government Accountability Office, Congress’s investigative arm, said in an April report. Most of the growth came in part-time workers, possibly due to the recession, the report said.
The National Employment Law Project, a New York-based group that advocates for workers, said in a report last year that the 2.8 million temporary workers in the U.S. was a record.”