What does a temporary help service job offer? Empirical suggestions from a Japanese survey

The aim of this paper is to test whether or not a temporary help service (THS) job benefits workers in Japan. By applying the average treatment effect on the treated estimation and its sensitivity tests to the Japanese survey data, we obtained the following findings. First, we observed no evidence that THS work has a positive impact on the probability of being permanently employed in subsequent waves, when compared to directly hired part-time jobs. Rather, THS workers suffer from a significantly higher probability of being unemployed, at least at some point over the next 2 years, than directly hired part-time workers do. At the same time, however, we also found weak evidence that THS workers have a lower probability of being unemployed than those who were originally unemployed. We conclude that THS work in Japan has failed to provide a stepping stone to permanent employment, although it may have provided employment opportunities to those who were otherwise unemployed.