Certified as Small Business and Minority Woman Owned since 1988

Staffing agencies have been around for several years, but do you know the history behind how the staffing industry got started? Its inception may surprise you and the changes through the years have been many. Even though Josephine’s Professional Staffing opened its doors 25 years ago this year, the very first staffing agency was started here in California over a hundred years ago. Katherine Felton was born in Oakland, the daughter of prominent Oakland mayor and judge, Brooks Felton, whom the city of Felton, near Santa Cruz, was named after. Katherine created the first staffing agency to solve the problems and needs brought on by the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906. Among many other hats, Katherine quickly became the head of the social service efforts to restore people’s way of life prior to the natural disaster.   Read the rest of this entry »

Silicon Valley remains the largest and most influential high-tech centers in the world. It leads all other metropolitan regions in the United States in the significant economic activity it creates through technological innovation.

Since the 1960s, Silicon Valley has provided an ideal habitat for high-tech firms to be born and to grow. The products of these high-tech firms have improved business processes and models, generated economic growth, and improved standards of living around the globe. How are employment and wages holding up today, after the peak of the dot-com era, the ensuing dot-com bust, the resurgence of high tech and then the overall slump in the economy?

There is good news! Despite the flagging economy, labor force numbers are growing in the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara region. According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the increases are small, but they exist. Unemployment, while not showing a steady decline, has trended downward in 2011. So while the area is not poised to boom, neither is it about to go bust.

According to the categories provided by the BLS, the three areas showing the most growth are Information, Manufacturing, and Education and Health Services. And let’s not forget the industry that gave the area its name: the word “silicon” in the term “Silicon Valley” refers to the key ingredient of semiconductors, which formed the technical basis for the computer-based high-technology economic climate that grew in and around San Jose, California, in Santa Clara County.

The agglomeration of high-tech industries that spread into neighboring Bay Area counties (Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Cruz) have made Silicon Valley synonymous with dynamic, technology-driven growth and continue to create a large and diverse base of high-paying jobs across the region.

All of this is good news for jobseekers in southern California, where despite the high cost of living and governmental disarray, there are still jobs to be found. To see how we can help you find the job of your dreams, contact Josephine’s Personnel Services today. We provide staffing services in Silicon Valley, San Jose, Santa Clara County and all of California.

For the past several years, California has suffered from high unemployment rates and employment “growth” rates in the negative numbers. Nearly all California industries lost jobs between 2007 and 2010. In January 2010, then-Governor Schwarzenegger promised to create jobs and get California’s economy back on track. His proposed California Jobs Initiative was supposed to create or retain at least 100,000 jobs in the state and provide training for 140,000 more people.

One year later, that Initiative has stalled. Governor Jerry Brown is now saying that California cannot create the jobs it needs, until a budget is passed that will allow the state to get its financial house in order.

Do you have the time to wait for the government to straighten itself out? Most likely you don’t.

If you are looking for steady employment in California, there is one industry that has shown national growth throughout this recession: the staffing industry. In a time where companies have less money to spend on hiring full-time employees, they are calling upon staffing agencies to help ease their workloads.

If you’ve never thought of working through a staffing agency, or if you think it’s not for you, consider that taking work through a staffing agency can mean:

• Excellent networking opportunities. Working at various companies can become an excellent opportunity to connect with new people, discover new clients, or even make new friends. You can meet a variety of people in various industries in a single year of working temporary jobs.
• Lack of boredom. When you work at a temporary job, the work almost never has time to get boring.
• Trying out new employers. Being able to work at various companies for a limited time offers you the unique opportunity to “try out” working for a company without a long-term commitment. Just as employers use temporary staffing to try out workers, so can you use our opportunity to see if you like various companies.  You may discover that you enjoy working for a company or industry in a type of job that you didn’t know existed before.
• Getting your foot in the door. Taking on temporary jobs may allow you to get your foot in the door at a company that may not officially be hiring.
• Acquiring new skill training. Every job you take can teach you new skills and increase your worth as an employee. These skills could be in new programs, new hardware, or even in a completely new field.
• Having them call you. When you work with a staffing agency, you don’t have to devote all of your time to looking for a job. They do all of the searching for you, and can have you in place and earning a paycheck in less time than it would take you to find one on your own.

For more than 20 years, Josephine’s Personnel Services, Inc. has provided staffing services to companies in the Silicon Valley, San Jose, Santa Clara County, Northern California, and Southern California. If you are looking for the competitive edge that working with a staffing agency can provide you, contact us today!

Hello and welcome to Josephine’s Personnel Services’ new Workforce Management and Career Blog. This blog was designed to help hiring managers and business leaders get answers to their most pressing employment and HR questions, and help job seekers enhance their skills and advance their careers.

Each week we will share timely and insightful information on a number of topics including:

• Talent management
• Recruiting and hiring
• Employment law
• Workforce strategy
• Employee retention
• Interviewing
• Resume writing
• Career advancement
• News about Josephine’s Personnel Services
• Upcoming local events
• And much more

We hope you find this blog to be useful and we welcome your thoughts and feedback.  And, if you would like us to cover a specific topic, simply leave a comment below and we’ll address your suggestion in an upcoming post.

About Josephine’s Personnel Services
Josephine’s Personnel Services, Inc. (JPS, Inc.), established in 1988, is certified as a small, independent, disadvantaged, minority, woman-owned, full-service professional staffing provider offering the following staffing solutions:

• Temporary/Contract
• Temporary-to-Hire
• Direct Hire Placement
• Payroll Service
• Vendor-on-Premise

We provide staffing and HR support nationwide, with a specific concentration in Silicon Valley, San Jose, Santa Clara County and Northern California.