The Role of Temporary Help Employment in Tight Labor Markets

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. This research was supported with a grant from the Russell Sage Foundation. We wish to thank Lillian Vesic-Petrovic and Peter Einaudi for outstanding research assistance and Claire Black for her transcription of all interviews. David Autor, Peter Cappelli, and two anonymous referees provided particularly helpful suggestions on earlier drafts of this paper. Terms of use: Documents in The Role of Temporary Agency Employment in Tight Labor Markets AbstractThis paper examines the reasons why employers used and even increased their use of temporary help agencies during the tight labor markets of the 1990s. Based on case study evidence from the hospital and auto supply industries, we evaluate various hypotheses for this phenomenon. In high-skilled occupations, our results are consistent with the view that employers paid substantially more to agency help to avoid raising wages for their regular workers and to fill vacancies while they recruited workers for permanent positions. In low-skilled occupations, our evidence suggests that temporary help agencies facilitated the use of more "risky" workers by lowering their wages and benefits and the costs associated with turnover.

The effect of receiving supplementary UI benefits on unemployment duration

“…When he has done so, the right to receive supplementary UI benefit is ceased until he has worked more than 30 hours a week for 26 weeks within the last 12 months. 4 However, the rules as described above imply that an unemployed individual who has received supplementary UI benefits for 51 weeks and thereafter refrains from receiving benefits for 19 weeks, can regain the supplementary benefit for an additional 52 weeks, and so on.…”

“…First of all, in some cases temporary and part-time jobs can represent the only way of escaping (full-time) unemployment. Secondly, those jobs can be adopted by employers as useful screening (or signalling) devices for permanent job positions (Storrie, 2002;Houseman, Kalleberg & Erickcek, 2003). Thirdly, they can provide valuable skills, work experience and in some cases facilitate the acquisition of specific human capital.…”

Manufacturers' Outsourcing to Employment Services

“…Temporary help agencies assign workers to clients on a temporary basis, though the assignment can vary considerably in length. Clients may utilize temporary agency workers for work that is truly temporary in nature (e.g., seasonal work or special projects) or to screen workers for permanent positions (Abraham 1990;Autor 2001;Autor 2003;Houseman 2001;Houseman, Kalleberg, and Erickcek 2003;Kalleberg, Reynolds, and Marsden 2003).…”

Stepping stones for the unemployed: the effect of temporary jobs on the duration until (regular) work

“…Some studies show that employers indeed use atypical contracts as a way of screening for permanent jobs (e.g. Storrie 2002;Houseman et al 2003). Our paper examines the extent to which temporary work facilitates individual unemployed workers to move from unemployment to regular work-that is, the extent to which temporary work acts as a stepping stone towards regular work.…”