Getting people temporary work is his full-time job
By Johanna Seltz GLOBE CORRESPONDENT
There's nothing
temporary about Joseph Donahue's business of providing temporary workers:
He's celebrating his Quincy-based company's 20th anniversary.
Donahue, 49, started
Microtech Staffing Group in his mother's basement in Waltham in 1985.
He'd worked for Honeywell and wanted to be self-employed. He hoped
he could use his networking skills to find a niche supplying temporary
workers to the high-tech industry. His company barely survived that
first year, earning a meager $600.
Over the years,
though, Microtech morphed into a major player in the regional temporary
staffing world. When the high-tech bubble burst -and clients like
Wang, Prime, and Digital disappeared -Donahue switched to the medical
devices arena, and then diversified into professional services like
accounting and administration.
These days, Microtech
sends out about 1,200 temporary workers a day across Greater Boston
to jobs doing everything from light manufacturing to engineering,
and generating about $40 million in sales a year, Donahue says.
It is ranked as
the second largest privately owned temporary employment agency in
New England by the latest Boston Business Journal's Book of Lists.
The company was
able to move out of Donahue's childhood basement after two years,
but his mother stayed on as "office head honcho" taking
care of the billing and stuffing envelopes until her death last year
at age 90.
Microtech moved
to Quincy, above the Alba Restaurant, in 2000, and now has offices
in Medway, Woburn, Danvers, and Londonderry, N.H. It also just opened
a branch in Miami, and is considering expanding to other Florida cities,
Donahue says.
Donahue says he's
also looking into the healthcare market -filling spots for nurses
and physical therapists -and increasing services for administrative
and accounting jobs in downtown Boston. His expansion plans are based
on general optimism about the economy.
"We're usually
six to nine months ahead -temps are the first in and first out -and
the economy is moving along," he says. "We're getting back
to capacity?'
Nationally, the
temporary staff business is booming; the US Bureau of Labor Statistics
predicts it will be the fifth largest growing industry through 2012.
The National Staffing Association, a trade organization, says business
totaled $15.8 billion in the first quarter of this year, an increase
of 11.5 percent from the same period in 2004.
Donahue says the
use of temporary workers has shifted over the years, from fill-ins
for people on vacation to a way for companies to cut costs by eliminating
the need to pay for benefits such as health insurance. His response,
he says, is to pay good wages and help provide access to the marketplace.
He said 37 percent
of his temporary workers have ended up with permanent jobs through
their placements. Several became millionaires by getting in early
with clients who rode the dot.com wave to success, he says.
Microtech's workers
range from high school students to senior citizens. 'Two-thirds are
recent immigrants. In the 1980s, many came from Southeast Asia. More
recently, many come from Central or South America.
"We've done
a good job being a gateway for a lot of the new Americans, getting
them into companies," he says. "And we're starting to see
the children of the people we put in. They're more educated and looking
for different [jobs], higher-end things, which is a good thing."
Both education
and the chance for immigrants to succeed are close to Donahue's heart.
His mother emigrated from Ireland and had to give up the chance for
a college education to go to work.
Donahue, who graduated
from Boston College High School and Boston College, and then earned
a master's degree in business administration from Babson College,
is a two-term trustee of BC High, and recently created a scholarship
there in his mother's name. He and his wife, Beth, also are active
at St. Paul's in Hingham, where his 12-year-old daughter goes to school.
"I just hope
we've done a good job opening opportunities to a lot of people of
all walks of life and all ages," he says of his company.
"Hopefully,
it's been a win-win for all of our clients and employees. And I hope
to have another 20 good years here in Quincy?"
