Ever wonder what is meant by the term "contingent worker?"  If so, a recent blog post by Staffing Industry Analysts does a good job of defining it.

According to the blog post, contingent worker is a term used to refer collectively to the different types of individuals in non-traditional work arrangements: temps, contractors, consultants, independent contractors, free-agents, etc.  The term has emerged because "temporary worker" no longer seems to fit the vast variety of alternative staffing arrangements that now exist, and the workers themselves resist against being called temps.

For our purposes on this blog, we don't generally refer to workers as contingents because we are focused specifically on those working on a contract basis for a company while being employed as a W-2 employee of either a recruiter or a contract staffing back-office. Therefore, we usually refer to workers as simply "contractors."

Debbie Fledderjohann is the President of Top Echelon Contracting, Inc.