Producing Precarity: The Temporary Staffing Agency in the Labor Market

Abstract

On the basis of fieldwork in a temporary staffing agency (TSA), I argue that while temp agencies may provide transitional mobility for jobseekers, in the long run the TSA systematically exploits and reproduces structural vulnerability in the labor market. The agency creates a core of permanent temporary workers separate from the periphery of surplus workers, such that the former is given priority in job allocation. The staffing agency can use alliances with institutions such as private correctional facilities to control its peripheral workers. At the same time, highly valued core workers also face precarious conditions when they are barred from job mobility and their wages are capped. The agency further reinforces precariousness during the moment of work by extending the agency's surveillance to client sites.

Precarious Employment: Understanding an Emerging Social Determinant of Health

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Precarity of place: a complement to the growing precariat literature

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“…They reflect economic insecurity and uncertain living and working conditions that working-and middle-class Americans experienced during the Great Recession (Kalleberg & Marsden, 2012). Moreover, they mirror the precarious everyday experiences of workers facing increasing changes in what they thought were previously assured employment conditions, entitlement benefits, and safety net programs (Elcioglu, 2010;Kalleberg, 2009). These trends also affect large segments of the population who are being subjected to lower pay, intermittent income, housing problems, property loss, and deteriorating standards of living (Arnold & Bongiovi, 2013).…”

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