What Was Driving the 1982–88 Boom In Temporary Employment?

Abstract . The level of temporary help employment rose two-and-a-half fold between 1982 and 1988, was quite variable and had a disproportionately larger effect on employment flows. One conventional explanation suggests that changing demographic composition of the labor force in favor of groups preferring nontraditional employment arrangements fueled the temporary help boom. Demand-side views emphasize the volatility in labor demand, intensified price competition and the absence of employee benefit contributions. Empirical estimation confirms that demand-side forces predominate. Yet no labor supply variable is found to be positively associated with the extent of temporary employment. Cyclical fluctuation in output, intensified foreign competition and the magnitude of nonwage labor costs are all positively associated with temporary employment levels. The diminishing bargaining power of labor unions allows employers to exploit the labor cost savings of temporary hires, and the extent of paid time-off and the lack of flexibility in weekly hours of work play a weak role. The findings suggest why temporary job growth accelerated in the 1980s, as more firms employed a “core-periphery” human resource strategy. Public policy should adopt measures that attempt to limit the creation of temporary jobs to a level that accommodates the worker need for flexible annual work schedules.     

Explaining cyclical movements in employment: Creative-destruction or changes in utilization?

An important step in understanding why employment fluctuates cyclically is determining the relative importance of cyclical movements in permanent and temporary plant-level employment changes. If movements in permanent employment changes are important, then recessions are times when the destruction of job-specific capital picks up and/or investment in new job capital slows. If movements in temporary employment changes are important, then employment fluctuations are related to the temporary movement of workers across activities (e.g. from work to home production or search and back again) as the relative costs/benefits of these activities change. I estimate that in the manufacturing sector temporary employment changes account for nearly 60% of the change in employment growth over the cycle. However, if permanent employment changes create and destroy more capital than temporary employment changes, then their economic consequences would be relatively greater. The correlation between gross permanent employment changes and capital intensity across industries supports the hypothesis that permanent employment changes do create and destroy more capital than temporary employment changes.     

Job flows,jobless recoveries,and the Great Moderation

This paper explores a link between the decline in employment volatility and the onset of jobless recoveries observed since the mid-1980s using a time series of job flow estimates for manufacturing that covers the entire postwar period. I show that job creation and job destruction rates have fallen and become less cyclical. This has increased the importance of reallocative shocks relative to aggregate shocks in explaining their time-series fluctuations. Despite the increased importance of reallocation, it is a change in the responses of job flows to aggregate shocks, which are now larger and more persistent, that lead to the onset of jobless recoveries. The decline in the cyclicality of temporary layoffs and the rise in the use of employment services cannot account for these altered responses.     

Temporary contracts and labour productivity in Spain: a sectoral analysis

This paper analyses the impact on sectoral labour productivity growth caused by the increase in the use of temporary employment contracts in Spain over the period 1987–2000. With this aim, we estimate a production function model in which effective labour is represented by the shares of permanent, temporary and self-employed workers. Results suggest that productivity growth has been slowed down by the use of temporary contracts for regular jobs and that this has not been affected by compositional changes in activity over the period. However, this effect has only been detected in the manufacturing and energy sector, in contrast to low-technology low-human capital sectors like construction and hospitality.     

The effect of strike replacement legislation on employment

Employers and employer groups often argue that restrictions on an employer's ability to use replacement workers during a strike reduce employment. This study analyzes provincial employment-to-population ratios for 1966–1994 and unionized bargaining unit employment growth rates for 1966–1993 to test for an impact of provincial strike replacement policies in Canada. A strike replacement ban that restricts the use of both permanent and temporary replacements is found to have adverse employment consequences. The results for reinstatement rights provisions (effectively banning permanent replacements) and professional strikebreaker bans are mixed.     

Flexible Working Practices In the Public,Not-For-Profit and Commercial Leisure Sectors In SCotland

Public sector leisure managers in the UK have been struggling, since the extension of compulsory competitive tendering to leisure management in 1989, to reconcile the conflicts between becoming more consumer led and satisfying the needs of the ‘recreationally deprived’. Rationalization has ensured that a fundamental priority for managers has been the introduction of more cost-effective working practices. This article examines the diversity in employment practices across the three sectors of the leisure industry, that is, the public, not-for-profit and private sectors. The case study evidence presented found clear differences between the sectors. Although managers in not-for-profit leisure facilities have more freedom to use greater flexibility in employment practices as compared with their public sector counterparts, they are still somewhat constrained by having to meet the social objectives set by their Board of Directors. Private sector managers were found to be providing the highest proportion of full-time jobs, although they offered lower conditions of employment. This was made possible by the funding certainties created by regular monthly/annual customer memberships.     

On firm-level,industry-level,and aggregate employment fluctuations

Employment fluctuations are examined, at different levels of aggregation, in a model with firm-specific hiring decisions due to search frictions and sticky pricing. The results indicate that firm-level employment dispersion rises with higher price stickiness and higher demand elasticity, whereas it falls with more convexity of search costs and with a higher labor supply elasticity. Industry-level employment is more volatile and less procyclical than aggregate employment, and a larger industry size reduces volatility and raises co-movement with output. The calibrated model is able to match the volatility, autocorrelation and cyclical correlation of US industry-level employment when incorporating firm-specific technology shocks.     

There's No Place Like Home

A bstract .   Employment stability for many nonstandard workers is tenuous and early research shows some types of nonstandard employment carry long-term consequences in the form of lower wages and fewer benefits over time. This paper seeks to add to the literature by considering another long-term consequence for nonstandard workers: the inability of some nonstandard workers to accumulate assets. The particular asset this paper focuses on is home ownership. Logistic regression results using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 suggest that current and past employment in some nonstandard jobs, especially as a temporary worker, is associated with a lower probability of owning a home. This may have repercussions not only for households with temporary workers but for their community as well, since home ownership has been tied to positive spillovers such as increased social capital and community involvement.     

新时期河南农村劳动力转移就业的主要特点及发展趋势分析

河南国民经济和社会发展进入第十二个五年规划时期,河南农民工转移就业呈现新的特点和发展趋势。农民工就业形势依然严峻,总量大且增长速度快;农民工群体年轻化、知识化和技能化新特点显现;农民工转移就业的岗位、方式日趋稳定;河南吸纳农民工就业的能力越来越强,越来越多的农民工在省内转移就业;农民工就业的行业结构出现了一些新的变化;农村劳动力供求关系正从长期"供过于求"转向"总量过剩,结构短缺"的新阶段。在"十二五"及中长期时间内,河南农村劳动力总量供大于求的局面不会改变,转移就业的规模和增长速度将逐渐趋向平稳;转移流动就业的形式仍以流动型和定居型存在;"刘易斯拐点"的迹象即将显现;从长期看,到"十三五"末,河南农村劳动力供给将进入"刘易斯转折点"的第二阶段。劳动人口将出现负增长,农村富余劳动力将由结构性短缺发展到全面短缺。     

The effects of foreign exchange and monetary policies in Russia

This paper examines the effects of Russian foreign exchange and monetary policies under conditions of abundant natural resources during the period 1999–2011 using structural VAR models. The results suggest that monetary policy shocks, which are identified as money supply disturbances, have a persistent effect on real output, and more than half of the volatility in real output can be explained by changes in the money supply. Furthermore, the analysis reveals that stock prices are a more significant transmission channel of monetary policy than bank loans.     

Learning from the alien: knowledge relationships with temporary workers in network contexts

This paper contributes to our understanding of the role of temporary workers in learning for innovation in network contexts. The strategy literature advocates that the knowledge and talent of workers is vital to competitive success yet at the same time temporary workers are becoming more prevalent, making relationships with workers more ephemeral. These shifting competitive and employment contexts make insights into learning from, and with, contractual nomads paramount. The setting is the UK television industry, where such workers are dominant. Internationally, creative industries are a prime site of networks where temporary workers are brought together for specific projects. In the television industry, a range of knowledge attachment employee relationships have been developed by firms to ‘contain’ and sustain worker contributions in terms of knowledge and talent. These relationships are identified as freelance, regular contract, golden handcuffs and invest in knowledge firm. This paper highlights the learning implications both positive and negative arising from these different ways of relating to temporary workers thereby extending our understanding of employee relationships built on mutuality.     

Free or precarious? A comparison of the attitudes of workers in flexible and traditional employment contracts

This study contributes to research on the impact of different kinds of employment contract on worker attitudes in the context of debates about the changing nature of employment in the 21st century and in particular the emergence of what have been described as either free or precarious workers. Work experiences and attitudes associated with part-time, temporary and multiple contracts are compared with those of workers in single, permanent, full-time jobs. Among a sample of UK pharmacists, few significant differences are found between workers on any of these contracts, either singly or in combination, and those in traditional employment contracts. The role of contract of choice and work orientations as potential mediators was explored. Although both were associated with attitudes, they had only a very minor role as either mediators or moderators. It is concluded that among this sample of professional workers, those on atypical employment contracts report experiences and attitudes that are at least as positive as those of workers in traditional employment contracts.     

Betwixt and Between: The Dilemma of Employee References

Concerns have arisen over employers' collection and sharing of information about employees, especially employment references. As a result of the dramatic growth in the number of lawsuits brought by employees, many employers have seriously curtailed the information they release concerning current and former employees. However, even the refusal to release information carries a legal risk. Employers who do not obtain information concerning applicants can be liable for negligent hiring, and those who knowingly withhold negative information regarding their former employees may be liable for negligent referral. This paper explores these expanding liabilities and suggests strategies to allow employers to manage the risk of communicating employee references.     

The impact of Greek labour market regulation on temporary employment – evidence from a survey in Thessaly,Greece

This paper uses an original data-set for 186 workplaces in Thessaly (central Greece), to study consequences of Greece's strict employment protection law (EPL) and national minimum wage for temporary employment. We find higher temporary work contract rates among workplaces that pay low wages close to the minimum. We also find that EPL ‘matters’, in particular, managers who prefer temporary contracts because temporary workers are less protected definitely employ more. Our findings thus support the view that a firm's HRM decisions regarding internal versus external allocation of tasks are influenced by labour regulation.     

Externalizing the core: Firms' use of employment intermediaries in the information and communication technology industries

Recent research suggests that nonstandard employment relations may be a source of innovation for the firm. In this article, we analyze firms' strategic correlates and perceived benefits from using two types of employment in‐termediaries—consulting firms and temporary help agencies—in their core activities. Organizations with an innovation strategy are more likely to use consulting firms in their core activities, while organizations that compete on the basis of low cost are more apt to use temporary help agencies. Moreover, managers say that consulting firms are more likely than temporary help agencies to provide them with special competencies in their core activities. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Macroeconomic Uncertainty and Oil Price Volatility

This paper shows that higher macroeconomic uncertainty causes higher oil price volatility. Regimes of low and high uncertainty are identified in a threshold VAR model in which the effects of structural oil demand and supply shocks are estimated. The results show that higher macroeconomic uncertainty, as measured by global industrial production volatility, significantly increases the sensitivity of oil prices to shocks in oil demand and supply. This occurs as uncertainty lowers the price elasticity of oil demand and supply. The difference in the estimated oil price elasticities is economically meaningful as the price impact of a similar change in oil production might double when it hits the economy in uncertain times. As such, varying uncertainty can explain why oil price volatility is typically higher during periods such as financial crises and recessions, and why oil price volatility changes over time more generally.     

Human resource management practices and voluntary turnover: a study of internal workforce and external labor market contingencies

We tested relationships between employee quit rates and two bundles of human resource (HR) practices that reflect the different interests of the two parties involved in the employment relationship. To understand the boundary conditions for these effects, we examined an external contingency proposed to influence the exchange-based effects of HR practices on subsequent quit rates – the local industry-specific unemployment rate – and an internal contingency proposed to shape employees’ conceptualization of their exchange relationship – their employment status (i.e. full-time, part-time and temporary employment). Analyses of lagged data from over 200 Canadian establishments show that inducement HR practices (e.g. extensive benefits) and performance expectation HR practices (e.g. performance-based bonuses) had different effects on quit rates, and the former effect was moderated by unemployment rate. The effects of HR practices on quit rates did not differ between FT and PT employees, but a different pattern of main and interactive effects was found among temporary workers. These findings suggest that employees’ exchange-based decisions to leave may be less affected by the number of hours they expect to work each week, and more by the number of weeks they expect to work.     

Bayesian counterfactual analysis of the sources of the great moderation

We use counterfactual experiments to investigate the sources of the large volatility reduction in US real GDP growth in the 1980s. Contrary to an existing literature that conducts counterfactual experiments based on classical estimation and point estimates, we consider Bayesian analysis that provides a straightforward measure of estimation uncertainty for the counterfactual quantity of interest. Using Blanchard and Quah's ( 1989 ) structural VAR model of output growth and the unemployment rate, we find strong statistical support for the idea that a counterfactual change in the size of structural shocks alone, with no corresponding change in the propagation of these shocks, would have produced the same overall volatility reduction as what actually occurred. Looking deeper, we find evidence that a counterfactual change in the size of aggregate supply shocks alone would have generated a larger volatility reduction than a counterfactual change in the size of aggregate demand shocks alone. We show that these results are consistent with a standard monetary VAR, for which counterfactual analysis also suggests the importance of shocks in generating the volatility reduction, but with the counterfactual change in monetary shocks alone generating a small reduction in volatility. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Labor market flexibility and poverty dynamics

The past two decades have witnessed a rapid growth in flexible work arrangements that, in some instances, could expose workers to a higher poverty risk via limited job stability, few advancement opportunities, and low wages. Nowhere in the world has this increase in flexible work arrangements being more evident than in Spain, where about a third of the wage and salary workforce holds fixed-term contracts. Using Spanish panel data and maximum-likelihood binary models that account for state dependence and unobserved heterogeneity, we examine the poverty implications of past and present temporary employment. Our findings suggest that fixed-term contracts are linked to a greater poverty exposure among women and older men relative to open-ended contracts. Furthermore, this greater poverty exposure can last several years due to feedback effects operating via job instability or via the transition to work statuses characterized by higher poverty hazards. Finally, the adverse impact of temporary employment is linked to the short duration of some contracts, thus signaling the importance of work attachment.