Matthew Marlott should have been thrilled to land a $40,000 paralegal job with a major financial-services firm in New York in April. After all, he had been unemployed for more than six months.

The catch: He received no health insurance, sick days, vacation or job security. "It's basically like you're a disposable worker," the 26-year-old Mr. Marlott says.

Companies in white-collar industries such as technology, media and public relations are hedging their bets on the still-fragile recovery by hiring "contingent" workers like Mr. Marlott. These individuals typically work full-time for months for a single employer, collecting hourly wages -- but no benefits -- from an outside staffing agency.

Companies enjoy lower costs and the flexibility of easy layoffs. Indeed, at any given time, people in such "nonstandard" work arrangements are nearly twice as likely to be unemployed one month later than traditional full-time workers, concludes an October 2003 report by the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington research organization.

Yet contingent jobs make sense in some circumstances. Technology worker Matthew Jacobs, 26, took one this year with a New York technology company after a year of unemployment. "I was anxious to get back to work," he says. "Benefits are not critical." He can get health-insurance coverage through his new employer by contributing part of his pay.

Certain contingent employees like the freedom of trying out a new workplace. Public-relations executive Aimee Grove was working from her Sausalito, Calif., home for her father's public-relations firm last year when she accepted a two-month position with Allison & Partners, a San Francisco PR agency.

"I have a hard time making decisions," she explains. "I needed the two-month psychological cushion."

Ms. Grove, 35, received a flat weekly fee with no benefits for working about 40 hours a week. After she completed her stint in April 2003, the firm hired her permanently. She now is an account director, managing its travel and tourism clients. Her compensation rose more than 10%, including benefits, although she works longer hours.

For other people, a contingent position offers a transition from a postcollege internship. Catherine Boult, a 2002 graduate of Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass., accepted such a post at the Center for the Study of the Presidency, a Washington think tank, in December 2002 after a four-month unpaid internship. The center warned she would remain an hourly employee without benefits until it got more grant money.

By June 2003, she was considering changing employers. "I loved the experience I was getting, but I didn't think it was safe" to live without health insurance, she says. The group then offered Ms. Boult, then 22, a permanent position coordinating a team of research fellows. She got benefits and doubled her total compensation.

Contingent workers angling for permanent status should take on extra work and project an aura of unbridled enthusiasm -- even if that means faking it. "I would go in there all smiles and then walk out and say, 'I hate this,' " recalls a customer-service worker, describing a contingent position she held for four months at a Mountain View, Calif., Internet company before she was hired permanently in March.

Brad Karsh, president of JobBound, a Chicago employment-coaching service, recommends that individuals keep job hunting after they take a contingent position. "It's exactly like dating," he says. "You don't want to be loyal if they're not going to be loyal to you."

And they aren't. Last month, Mr. Marlott's employer decided to reshuffle his department and eliminate his spot. "I'm just a cog in the system," he laments. "It hurts, because I liked my job."