I've temped and had many friends who have temped. The economy is bad right now so temp jobs are difficult to come by from my own experiences and those of my friends in NYC, LA, Bay Area, and Boston. The work is usually office type stuff... filing, data entry, word processing, answering the phone, though there are some agencies that specialize in placing people in scientific jobs in labs. Kelly Scientific comes to mind in that regard. It depends on the assignment as to how many hours it is and what the pay is. In these larger cities if you have college degree or significant office experience it seems to range from $12/hr to $20/hr depending on the skills needed for the job, etc. Right now the salaries seem to be lower if you are lucky enough to get something. Pretty much you go in, they give you a typing test and maybe a computer test on MS Office, etc to test your skills, interview you, and then they will call you with placements that can range from 1 day to several months to getting hired by the company if it is temp-to-perm. My advice would be to sign up with several agencies since the economy is bad and that way you will have more shots for job. You can find the agencies in the phone book or do a search online. Good luck.
