The US recession has driven bosses and their employees closer together and only 30 percent of employees want their boss's stressful job, recruitment firm Adecco Staffing US found in a poll.

Almost one in five said they would have a fling with their boss if it would help their career and a similar number share connections with their boss through social networking sites like Facebook or LinkedIn.

The survey found that some people are willing to go to greater lengths? to keep their jobs in a tough market.

Striving for the boss's job is not a top priority, though. Employees with children aged 18 or under at home are more likely to want their boss's job to help pay for education and other costs.

That, and the smaller number of employees in many departments, strengthened ties between employees and bosses.

With unemployment? brushing up against 10 percent, those still working "feel like they were the chosen ones, like they got a vote of confidence from their boss that they're good enough to be retained," said David Adams, Adecco Group North America vice president of learning and development in Seattle.

This may not change any time soon, even though the private-sector National Bureau of Economic Research last month called the recession over as of June 2009.

"Recession tested people's values and many realize that it's not all about work," said Adams, adding that workers saw peers climb the corporate ladder? only to be laid off.

More than three-quarters of bosses said they felt stronger bonds to their employees than three years ago, and 61 percent of the employees agreed.

"Although it's technically over, nobody feels that it is over," said Adams.