Search results

Research shows that the risk of work-related disorders is higher among temporary agency workers than among other employees. The purpose of this paper is to describe the working conditions of temporary agency workers and explains which factors contribute towards work-related disorders for this group.

This paper is based on a survey responded to by 482 agency workers in Sweden. The dependent variable is the prevalence of work-related disorders. Independent variables include personal characteristics, job characteristics, employment characteristics and temporary agency work characteristics.

The study indicates several risk factors: holding a position as a blue-collar worker; being assigned to more physically demanding work tasks and having fewer opportunities to learn new things than client organization employees; lacking training for work tasks; and lacking clarity regarding which work tasks to do during an assignment.

The theoretical implications of this study are related to the dual employment–management relationship in temporary agency work where the temporary work agency and client organization follow different logics. The logic in the employment relationship is to contract temporary agency workers out to client organizations; thus, there is no time for formal training. The logic in the management relationship lies in making temporary agency workers profitable as soon as possible, encouraging shortcuts in training and instruction; thus, temporary agency workers risk being left with a lack of clarity regarding what to do and how to do it.

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 tea plantation industry is characterized by the large-scale deployment of cheap women laborers and gender-blind practices that make the social positions of women workers vulnerable. This paper considers women temporary workers in tea gardens to study the exacerbated impact of Covid-19 on their lives. The impact of the pandemic on marginal tea garden women laborers has not received enough attention from researchers; hence, the authors have studied the gendered implications of the pandemic on Adivasi temporary women workers in tea gardens in India. “Adivasi” is an umbrella term to refer to all indigenous tribes in India.

The authors conducted a qualitative study with 26 in-depth interviews with women temporary workers who identify themselves as Adivasis. For the discussion, the authors have mainly borrowed from intersectionality and subalternity literature.

The analysis explored the intersectional experiences of the women temporary workers (1) as members of Tea Tribes who are compelled to continue working at tea gardens as wage laborers, (2) job insecurities at work due to their temporary worker status, (3) disadvantages faced by women workers for their gender identity and (4) the gendered impact of the pandemic on their lives.

This study has explored the gendered impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the lives of temporary women workers who belong to ethnic minority groups in the global south. The exploitation of labor rights in the tea industry during the pandemic has not been discussed enough by researchers earlier.

The purpose of this paper is to test the relationship between gross domestic product (GDP) and agency work.

The paper develops a theoretical model for the time interdependence of GDP, agency work and regular employment and tested model predictions using a VAR model.

Results show that on the macro level temporary agency work leads GDP development. Temporary agency work is an excellent instrument for employers to adjust the size of their workforce to fluctuations in product demand. Temporary work agencies, however, have a tough job finding qualified personnel in tight labour markets because workers generally prefer the security of a permanent contract. It is shown in this paper that, as a result of these two countervailing forces, the number of hours worked through temporary work agencies precedes GDP development. Agency work increases in the last phase of a recession after regular workers have been dismissed. It expands further, in line with GDP, when the trough is passed until agency worker's labour supply stagnates. This leads to a decrease in agency hours even before the business cycle reaches its peak. Then agency work declines further, in line with GDP, until regular workers are dismissed and the cycle start again.

Temporary work arrangements have become a key area of interest for firms, academics and policy makers. This paper shows how the use of these work arrangement fluctuates over time. Also, this paper shows that agency work can be used in predicting future GDP development.

Looks in depth at Romania’s Labour Code and lists out in more detail all the relevant points, to show how employees and employers may work better together without conflict, Using guidelines from the European Union. Uses countries as a flagstaff for what could be done to improve matters for temporary employees.

The purpose of this paper is to explore an expanded temporal context of non‐permanent work through an examination of the influence of previous experience of temporary working, contract duration and time remaining on contract and expectations of continued employment on reports of job insecurity, job satisfaction, in‐role performance and organisational commitment.

Hypotheses were tested using responses of 1,169 temporary workers from a multi‐national, cross‐sectional questionnaire study.

Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that having previous experience of temporary work was associated with higher in‐role performance. No significant effects were found for contract duration, but shorter time remaining on present contract was associated with greater job insecurity and also greater in‐role performance. However the strongest effects were found for expectations of continued employment, with stronger expectations being linked to more positive reports of each outcome. A number of moderation effects were found that indicated interactions between temporal variables and revealed a moderating role of preference for temporary work.

The paper is one of the first to formally consider the influence of a broader temporal context on attitudes and behaviours of temporary workers. Significant associations were found between elements relating to each of the past, present and future and important individual and organisational variables in the present. These effects were sustained above and beyond the influence of variables such as country, sector, preferences, skill level, contract type, and demographics that are known to affect temporary workers' attitudes and behaviours.

Research shows that the risk of work-related disorders is higher among temporary agency workers than among other employees. The purpose of this paper is to describe the working conditions of temporary agency workers and explains which factors contribute towards work-related disorders for this group.

This paper is based on a survey responded to by 482 agency workers in Sweden. The dependent variable is the prevalence of work-related disorders. Independent variables include personal characteristics, job characteristics, employment characteristics and temporary agency work characteristics.

The study indicates several risk factors: holding a position as a blue-collar worker; being assigned to more physically demanding work tasks and having fewer opportunities to learn new things than client organization employees; lacking training for work tasks; and lacking clarity regarding which work tasks to do during an assignment.

The theoretical implications of this study are related to the dual employment-management relationship in temporary agency work where the temporary work agency and client organization follow different logics. The logic in the employment relationship is to contract temporary agency workers out to client organizations, thus there is no time for formal training. The logic in the management relationship lies in making temporary agency workers profitable as soon as possible, encouraging shortcuts in training and instruction; thus, temporary agency workers risk being left with a lack of clarity regarding what to do and how to do it.

The purpose of this paper is to delineates workers’ labour turnover and considerations around work, in a context of informalisation of work, through a case study of temporary non-resident farm workers in the deciduous fruit sector in Ceres, South Africa.

The research design is a three-phase exploratory sequential mixed-methods strategy. Findings from 29 in-depth interviews were refined, verified and ranked in four focus groups. These informed grounded indicators in a survey of 200 farm workers employed in peak season and their 887 household members.

Considerations are informed by work-related insecurities, interpersonal workplace relationships and reproductive insecurity in the form of care of others, social linkages and residential insecurity, seemingly hierarchical. The least important considerations most thwart workers’ ability to complete fixed-term contracts and account for over 70 per cent of labour turnover in the form of resignations. In sum, workers experience constrained considerations around work arising from their material, social and economic conditions.

This is the first study on the labour turnover of farm workers in South Africa and the fifth globally. The research gives precedence to the voice of farm workers and is a thick description of workers’ considerations around work.

Perceptions of employment histories are important insofar as they influence future job prospects. Critically, in light of the current pandemic, wherein many individuals are likely to have unanticipated employment gaps and/or temporary work experiences, this exploratory study aims to seek a better understanding of the signal associated with temporary employment histories, which is particularly germane to individuals' employment trajectories and a successful labour market recovery.

Drawing primarily on signalling theory and using a simulated hiring decision experiment, the authors examined the perceptions of temporary employment histories, as well as the period effect of COVID-19, a major exogenous event, on the attitudes of fictitious jobseekers with standard, temporary and unemployment histories.

The authors find that prior to COVID-19 unemployed and temporary-work candidates were perceived less favourably as compared to applicants employed in a permanent job. During the COVID-19 pandemic, assessments of jobseekers with temporary employment histories were less critical and the previously negative signal associated with job-hopping reversed. This study’s third wave of data, which were collected post-COVID, showed that such perceptions largely dissipated, with the exception for those with a history of temporary work with different employers.

The paper serves as a reminder to check, insofar as possible, preconceived biases of temporary employment histories to avoid potential attribution errors and miss otherwise capable candidates.

This paper makes a unique and timely contribution by focussing and examining the differential effect of economic climate, pivoted by the COVID-19 pandemic, on perceptions of temporary employment histories.

This study aims to investigate the effects of temporary workers and works councils on process innovations at manufacturing sites. The impact of temporary workers, commonly viewed as a means of operational flexibility and cost savings, on firms’ ability to innovate is underexplored. Works councils represent and help integrate temporary workers, but are often equated with unions, which have been criticized as barriers to innovation, especially in the US.

The authors use secondary data collected by the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) of the German Federal Employment Agency. Specifically, the authors conduct a series of regression analyses using 11-year panel data covering the period 2009–2019 with 11,641 manufacturing site-year observations.

The results suggest that the use of temporary workers initially promotes process innovation, but at too high a level, it impairs firms’ ability to innovate. Furthermore, the results suggest that works councils have a positive impact on innovation and dampen the curvilinear effect found with respect to temporary workers.

Research has largely focused on the cost and flexibility benefits of temporary workers. The authors analyze the effectiveness of temporary workers in terms of innovativeness. By including works councils, the study also consider the contextual environment in which temporary workers are employed. Finally, the results reject the assumption that works councils have a similar negative impact as unions on innovation; in fact, the authors find the opposite.