Search results

Temporary employment, colloquially referred to as temping, is relatively new to New Zealand. Research is divided as to where the benefits of temporary employment lie – with the agencies, the employers, or the “temps” themselves. We review the literature on temporary employment, with particular reference to New Zealand. We also present some findings of a New Zealand survey of agency‐employed temps. We present the demographic profile of this population group, their reasons for engaging in temporary employment, and their preferred type of employment. Most temporary employees in this study preferred permanent work, and undertook temporary work as a step towards more permanent employment. We discuss the implications of the research findings for organisations that are increasingly being faced with issues surrounding the management of temporary employees.

Traditionally, hiring indefinite duration contract employees has been the dominant method used by U.S. organizations to staff their labor needs. Indefinite duration contract employees, hereafter referred to as “regular” employees, have three defining characteristics: (1) they are hired directly as employees of the organization whose work they perform; (2) the duration of the employment relationship is unspecified, with a mutual expectation that it will continue as long as it is mutually satisfactory; and (3) the employment relationship provides ongoing – as opposed to intermittent – work. When their demand for labor increases, organizations staffed exclusively by regular employees can respond by having their employees work overtime or by hiring additional regular employees. Conversely, when their demand for labor decreases, such organizations can either maintain “inventories” of excess regular employees or reduce labor inputs by laying-off or reducing the work hours of regular employees.

The growing incidence of precarious employment across many sectors is a serious challenge for a developing country like India. Neo-liberal arguments justify precarity as essential for the development of the free market economy and advocate realigning human resource practices with an ever-changing business environment and labor cost conditions. This chapter seeks to identify the determinants and dynamics surrounding precarity of workers engaged in temporary employment in India. It uses the unique Employment and Unemployment Survey data set published by the National Sample Survey Organisation of Government of India for two time periods 2009–2010 (66th Round) and 2011–2012 (68th Round) to bring out the dimensions of precarity and identify the determinants (both micro- and macro-levels) of participation in temporary employment. We find that precarious employment is most likely to affect the young, women, non-union members, those belonging to minority and socially deprived communities with low land holding and low educational status. Precarious employment is also most pronounced in states where labor-intensive industries are exposed to global import competition and where labor laws are rigid. The chapter concludes by discussing the implications of these findings for the economic and social policies that Indian governments have adopted in recent years.

Discusses the long existing and confusing problems of establishing the relationship of who is, and who if not, a dependent worker. Reflects developments which have occurred in British law as it affects the employment field, plus an evaluation and analysis of some of the different types of employment relationships which have evolved by examining, where possible, the status of each of these relationships. Concludes that the typical worker nowadays finds himself in a vulnerable position both economically and psychologically owing to the insecurity which exists.

Temporary workers have many human resource and labour market implications. These consequences are further influenced with the introduction of new legislation relating to temporary workers. The purpose of this article is to present research on the impacts of the legislation – Fixed Term Employees Regulations and Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations – on temporary workers in the labour force.

Information from 24 Labour Force Surveys, conducted between December 1997 and November 2003, were analysed with two longitudinal Labour Force Surveys. Qualitative data was also gathered from six temporary worker employers and 17 agency workers.

Analysis of data demonstrated that the utilisation of temporary workers had declined in the labour force: Temporary workers had decreased in real terms by 24 per cent and agency workers who were less regulated by only 11 per cent. Also, an increased take‐up of permanent work by temporary workers was found post‐legislation (27 per cent) compared with pre‐legislation (22 per cent).

Some limitations exist in the study using National Statistics and qualitative data to analyse labour force dynamics. Further research is warranted in this area investigating how strategic decisions in utilising temporary workers are formed and how recent legislation has influenced these policies.

Changes in temporary worker legislation have direct consequences to the labour force.

The paper reveals the decline of temporary workers in the labour force between 1997 and 2003 and examines specific legislation, which may have influenced this phenomenon.

The aim of this article is to explore the influence of precarious (temporary) employment on employability and career development.

The article draws together primary and secondary research material.

Findings indicate that there are both positive and negative perspectives with regard to temporary employment and career development for both the workers themselves and the user firms.

Implications arising are that policy development/research is required to investigate potential interventions that could be introduced.

These are in line with the article's suggestion of adopting transitional labour market strategies. These major transitions are between education and employment; (unpaid) caring and employment; unemployment and employment; retirement and employment; “precarious” and permanent employment.

The article outlines two facets of precariousness associated with temporary work in relation to the worker and the user firm. It also presents a newly devised three‐stage typology of skill and skill acquisition that is relevant to the topic.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of employment status on service-oriented organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) of customer contact employees. The authors also investigate the mediating roles of internal mobility opportunity and job insecurity in the relationship between employment status and service-oriented OCB.

A survey methodology was used and data were collected from a dyad-sample of 270 employees and their supervisors of one retail and one banking companies in Taiwan. Product-of-coefficients approach and bootstrapping were used to test the multiple mediating model.

The results demonstrate that temporary employment related negatively to service-oriented OCB. Moreover, both internal mobility opportunity and job insecurity mediated the employment status – service-oriented OCB linkage.

This study has three limitations. First, this study examined only fixed-term direct-hire temporary employees. Future research should explore voluntary job behaviors of different categories of temporary employment to confirm the results of the present study. Second, this study examined internal mobility opportunity and job insecurity as two mediators. Other alternative avenues may exist by which employment status may lead to service-oriented OCB. Future research may explore additional possible mediators. Finally, the participants of this study were selected by the human resource departments of the participating companies. This option could have introduced selection bias in this study.

This study suggests that management should be aware of why temporary customer contact employees have lower levels of service-oriented OCB. As service-oriented OCB may be vital for organizational success in the service context, management must consider the benefits and costs when hiring temporary employees. Moreover, management can motivate temporary employees to display higher service-oriented OCB by shaping their expectations of internal mobility possibilities, or reducing temporary employees’ perception of job insecurity to enhance their service-oriented OCB.

This study makes two contributions. First, this study extends the effect of employment status in the OCB literature by investigating the relationship between employment status and service-oriented OCB for customer contact employees. The results of the present study lend support for the partial exclusion theory to predict that socially excluded group (i.e. temporary employees) tends to be less engaged in service-oriented OCB. Second, this study contributes to the literature by investigating two important links (i.e. internal mobility opportunity and job insecurity) to explain why temporary employment may lead to lower service-oriented OCB.

Significant unemployment among adults with serious mental illness (SMI) is a well-documented problem. Estimates suggest that as many as 85% of adults with SMI are unemployed at any one time (Anthony & Blanch, 1987; Milazzo-Sayre, Henderson & Manderscheid, 1997; Rogers, Walsh, Masotta & Danley, 1991). Recent years have seen advances in the development and dissemination of a variety of supported employment services for adults with disabilities. When people with SMI are enrolled in services with a specific employment focus, they achieve employment outcomes (e.g. job placement rates, job tenure) superior to those achieved by people receiving standard mental health services such as day treatment (Bond et al., 2001; Cook, 2003). Supported employment is now considered an “evidenced-based” practice (Bond et al., 2001). Although supported employment approaches vary, evidence-based services share common principles, including (1) prioritizing client preferences for type and timing of work; (2) providing in-vivo and follow-along supports as long as needed; (3) viewing work attempts as part of a learning opportunity; (4) having a commitment to “competitive” employment as an attainable goal; and (5) not relying on pre-vocational training, day treatment or sheltered workshops (Bond et al., 2001; Mowbray, Leff, Warren, McCrohan et al., 1997; Ridgeway & Rapp, 1998).

Using Spanish establishment-level data on temporary and permanent job and worker flows, we examine firms’ relative usage of fixed-term contracts in response to changes in their prior net employment expectations for the short-run and the long-run – viewed as proxies of how a wide variety of future shocks are ultimately perceived by establishments. The employment response of establishments to changing net employment expectations for the short-run is, primarily, suggestive of their reliance on fixed-term contracts as a buffer to cushion short-run changes in demand as well as to shield permanent workers from downward workforce adjustments. In contrast, their response to changes in net employment expectations for the long-run mostly hints on the use of fixed-term contracts as a screening device. Therefore, policies providing financial incentives to convert fixed-term into permanent contracts – thus targeting firms’ using fixed-term contracts as a screening device, are likely to only have limited effectiveness.