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A Model of Dual Labor Markets When Product Demand is Uncertain
Abstract
Dual labor market theory is an attempt to understand observed variation in wages and job quality. The theory argues that market processes tend to produce "primary" jobs characterized by high wages and longjob tenure, and "contingent" (or "secondary") jobs that typically offer low wages and short tenure. The key feature distinguishing dual labor market theory from such alternative explanations as human capital theory or the theory of compensating wage differentials, is the nature of the labor market equilibrium. In dual labor market theory, equilibrium is characterized by an excess supply of qualified workers to primary jobs. Mobility between contingent and primary jobs will therefore be limited, and "good" workers may be stuck in "bad" jobs.
... Particularly, firms employ a combination of temporary and permanent workers to manage fluctuations in demand. Temporary workers have become an important part of the health care workforce: the percentage of temporary workers in health care increased from 5.3% to 9.2% between 1995 and 2015 (Katz and Krueger, 2016). 1 Existing economic literature has shown that firms rely more on temporary workers when facing greater demand volatility due either to the opportunity cost of keeping an idle workforce (Dixit and Pindyck, 1994;Foote and Folta, 2002;Lotti and Viviano, 2012) or to the cost associated with high turnover rate (Rebitzer and Taylor, 1991;Levin, 2002). However, this strategy is challenged when permanent and temporary workers are not perfectly interchangeable in production. ...
... This paper is related to and builds upon several topics in the literature. Most closely related is work studying the relationship between demand uncertainty and labor input choices (Rebitzer and Taylor, 1991;Abraham and Taylor, 1996;Levin, 2002;Lotti and Viviano, 2012) and more broadly work on input choice under uncertainty (Oi, 1961;Nadiri and Rosen, 1973;Sandmo, 1971;Batra and Ullah, 1974;Hartman, 1976;Friedman and Pauly, 1981;Guiso and Parigi, 1999;Baker et al., 2004). The paper is also related to literature on the role of reputation in determining firms' quality or commitment to non-enforceable contracts (Klein and Le✏er, 1981;McMillan and Woodru↵, 1999;Banerjee and Duflo, 2000;Navathe and David, 2009;Johnson, 2011;Macchiavello and Morjaria, 2015). ...
... On the other hand, permanent workers may have lower incentive to exert high e↵ort if they expect longer tenure in the firm (Rebitzer and Taylor, 1991) or have shorter interaction with each patient due to higher workloads. In econometric analysis in Section 5.4, I find evidence that increasing the share of visits by permanent nurses reduces hospital readmissions using an IV method. ...
This paper presents and tests a new model that highlights the role of reputation in determining firms' workforce composition and strategy. Facing demand uncertainty, firms in labor-intensive service industries, such as health care, often rely on temporary workers. Past research has shown that firms that employ more temporary workers when facing greater demand fluctuations. However, this strategy is challenged by accumulating evidence that permanent and temporary workers are not perfectly interchangeable in the production of quality. This paper examines the strategies of firms facing this trade-off: temporary workers provide flexibility in responding to demand fluctuations but can lower reputation through a decline in quality. Through a model where demand is stochastic and linked to firms' reputation for quality, this paper predicts that firms' workforce composition depends on their reputation. Using novel and rich data from a large multi-state US home health provider, I provide evidence consistent with the theory. First patients visited more by permanent nurses were less likely to be rehospitalized. I use patient's differential distances to the nearest proportion of permanent nurse visits. Second, measuring firms' reputation by the establishment of a strong referral base, I find that low-reputation firms, such as new firms, decreased the share of temporary nurses with demand fluctuations. These results imply that low-reputation firms forgo short-term profitability in favor of long-term reputation gains through improvements to service quality.
... Second, employers might have no intention of giving contingent workers a permanent contract, and instead use contingent contracts to: achieve flexibility (i.e., to reduce labour adjustment costs) when faced with uncertain or volatile product demand (Abraham, 1988;Rebitzer and Taylor, 1991); fill a genuinely short-term position (Booth et al., 2002); or avoid potentially disadvantageous aspects of employment law (Prosser, 2016), which is especially likely where there is a large difference in the level of regulatory protection provided to permanent and contingent workers. Unlike the screening mechanism, this seems less likely to predominantly affect young people; they are just one of several groups with relatively low labour market power, including women and those with comparatively low education levels, at F o r P e e r R e v i e w 5 risk of this kind of firm behaviour (Giesecke, 2009). ...
... Unlike the screening mechanism, this seems less likely to predominantly affect young people; they are just one of several groups with relatively low labour market power, including women and those with comparatively low education levels, at F o r P e e r R e v i e w 5 risk of this kind of firm behaviour (Giesecke, 2009). The likely result is a segmented labour market, with one or more core sectors characterised by high quality and secure jobs (e.g., permanent contracts, high wages, training, career prospects) and one or more peripheral sectors characterised by low quality and insecure jobs (e.g., casual or fixed-term contracts, low wages, limited access to training, limited prospects for career progression) (Doeringer and Piore, 1971;Rebitzer and Taylor, 1991). ...
... Moreover, it also allows us to test crucial predictions from our model such as the negative impact of the reform on the likelihood of converting temporary contracts to permanent ones within the same employer. Building on Dickens and Lang (1985) and Rebitzer and Taylor (1991), among others, who examine the existence and consequences of dual labor markets, we also document how partial reforms targeting only the employment protection of temporary contracts led to a widening gap in earnings between temporary and permanent workers, reinforcing the duality of the Italian labor market. ...
... To determine the extent to which firm-level bargaining accounts for the differences in wages between temporary and permanent workers, we rely on a model of differential rentsharing. 51 Leveraging from within-person, within-employer transitions from temporary to permanent contracts, we find that around 79% of the raw return associated with such a 49 Several other economic forces may explain the existence of a gap in wages between temporary and permanent contract workers, including compensating differentials (Rosen, 1986), asymmetric information (Terviö, 2009), and efficiency wages (Bulow and Summers, 1986;Rebitzer and Taylor, 1991). ...
We combine matched employer-employee data with firms' financial records to study a 2001 Italian reform that lifted constraints on the employment of temporary contract workers while maintaining rigid employment protection regulations for employees hired under permanent employment contracts. Exploiting the staggered implementation of the reform across different sectoral collective bargaining agreements, we find that this policy change led to an increase in the incidence of temporary contracts but failed to raise employment significantly. The reform had both winners and losers. Firms appear to be the main winners as the reform was successful in decreasing labor costs, leading to higher profits. By contrast, young workers are the main losers since their earnings were substantially depressed following the policy change. Rent-sharing estimates show that workers on a temporary contract receive only 68% of the rents shared by firms with workers hired under a permanent contract, which helps to explain the post-reform labor cost reductions.
... Second, employers might have no intention of giving contingent workers a permanent contract, and instead use contingent contracts to: achieve flexibility (i.e., to reduce labour adjustment costs) when faced with uncertain or volatile product demand (Abraham, 1988;Rebitzer and Taylor, 1991); fill a genuinely short-term position (Booth et al., 2002); or avoid potentially disadvantageous aspects of employment law (Prosser, 2016), which is especially likely where there is a large difference in the level of regulatory protection provided to permanent and contingent workers. Unlike the screening mechanism, this seems less likely to predominantly affect young people; they are just one of several groups with relatively low labour market power, including women and those with comparatively low education levels, at F o r P e e r R e v i e w 5 risk of this kind of firm behaviour (Giesecke, 2009). ...
... Unlike the screening mechanism, this seems less likely to predominantly affect young people; they are just one of several groups with relatively low labour market power, including women and those with comparatively low education levels, at F o r P e e r R e v i e w 5 risk of this kind of firm behaviour (Giesecke, 2009). The likely result is a segmented labour market, with one or more core sectors characterised by high quality and secure jobs (e.g., permanent contracts, high wages, training, career prospects) and one or more peripheral sectors characterised by low quality and insecure jobs (e.g., casual or fixed-term contracts, low wages, limited access to training, limited prospects for career progression) (Doeringer and Piore, 1971;Rebitzer and Taylor, 1991). ...
The debate over whether contingent (and typically more precarious) employment acts as a bridge to permanent employment, or as a trap, has tended to focus on transitions rather than longer-run pathways. This approach cannot accurately identify indirect pathways from contingent to permanent employment or € trap' pathways involving short spells in other states. It also fails to distinguish between those experiencing contingent employment as a € blip' and those with longer spells. This article employs a different approach involving sequence analysis. Exploiting longitudinal data for Australia, evidence for the co-existence of pathways that correspond to € bridge' and € trap' characterizations of contingent employment is found. Further, in the case of casual employment-The most common form of contingent employment in Australia-These two types of labour market pathways are roughly equally prevalent, although for women and those with low educational attainment € traps' are more likely than € bridges'. © The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions.
... Generally speaking there is a well-documented theoretical and empirical evidence of a prevailing and systematic negative wage gap between temporary and regular workers (Jovanovich, 1979;Rebitzer & Taylor, 1991;Guell, 2000;Booth, Francesconi, & Frank, 2002;Bosio, 2014;Brown & Sessions, 2005;Da Silva & Turrini, 2015;Picchio, 2008). Some explanations rely on contract theory and asymmetric information. ...
... The employer has an information disadvantage at the moment of hiring and the worker-firm match is regarded as an ''experience good" (Jovanovich, 1979); in such a context, fixed-term contracts allow firms monitoring the matching quality without having to incur separation costs. Another reason explaining the wage penalty for temporary workers is based on the efficiency wage theory (Guell, 2000;Rebitzer & Taylor, 1991), with the contract renewal used as an effortincentive device instead of wages. Thus, fixed-term workers accept lower wages because firms link their performance to the promise of a contract renewal or to their employment on a permanent basis. ...
In this paper we investigate the drivers of wage inequality within education groups in Central-Eastern European Countries by employing EU-SILC microdata before (2007) and after (2012) the crisis. Our main focus is on the variability of temporary/permanent workers wage gap and on the role of institutions (labor market deregulation, union density, and wage coordination) in shaping the gap across education groups and along the wage distribution. Results, obtained by means of OLS and quantile regression methods, confirm that holding a temporary position corresponds to a statistically significant negative wage gap with respect to permanent jobs, especially for low-paid jobs and tertiary educated workers. The impact of institutional settings on the wage gap varies remarkably across education groups and wage levels, and strongly depends on the macroeconomic conditions.
... Degrees as positional goods Several authors have conceptualised the labour market as dual (Rebitzer and Taylor, 1991;Leontaridi, 1998), fragmented in two segments: a primary one including employees who benefit from high wages and employment security and a secondary segment including employees who lack such privileges, with low wages and precarious employment. Given the fact that in Portugal the latter segment has experienced considerable growth in parallel with a retrenchment of the former (Tavares, 2016), student perceptions about the value of degrees are likely to be influenced by these developments. ...
... This means that students' major concern lies not with unemployment, but probably with the nature and quality of employment. With the rise of the secondary segment of the dual labour market (Tavares, 2016;Rebitzer and Taylor, 1991;Leontaridi, 1998), students appear more concerned that they may end up in low paid and unprotected employment with only a first degree. Their intention to do a master because they do not feel prepared for the labour market may therefore be understood as a way of ensuring themselves against the possibility of ending up in precarious employment, rather than against the perspective of unemployment. ...
The paper presents and analyses quantitative data on student perceptions about the
employability of the first degree, and their trajectory choices on graduation. The purpose of this paper
is to assess the value of the first degree as a positional good in Portugal, further to the degree’s reduced
duration after the implementation of the Bologna Process. The majority of surveyed students, across sectors, study level and gender, assessed
as negative the impact of the implementation of the Bologna reforms on the employability
of the first degree. This had implications for students’ intended choices on graduation,
as the majority consider enroling in a master degree (except for polytechnic students).
Additionally, a large proportion of students felt unprepared to enter the labour market after the
first degree. The finding suggest that enrolments in master degrees are likely to keep
rising, a valuable piece of information for institutions and policy-makers responsible for regulating
higher education in Portugal.
... Fra le spiegazioni avanzate, vi sono le differenze intrinseche nel tipo di occupazione (job): ad esempio quando un impiego "primario" è difficilmente monitorabile rispetto ad un impiego "secondario" (Bulow-Summers, 1986); in questo filone, Drago-Perlman (1989) aggiungono alla possibilità di monitoraggio, associata alla minaccia di licenziamento per i lavoratori "shirkers", quella di incentivare con particolari schemi retributivi comportamenti "leali" da parte dei lavoratori. In alternativa, una causa della segmentazione, a parità di difficoltà di monitoraggio per i diversi tipi di lavoro, può risiedere nell'incertezza sul livello della domanda (Rebitzer-Taylor, 1991), o nell'interesse della classe dei capitalisti a dividere la classe dei lavoratori, al fine di "estrarre" maggiore impegno ("effort") dal lavoratore o di pagare un salario inferiore (Bowles, 1985). ...
... 5 I mercati del lavoro duali vengono definiti segmentati per sottolineare che la mobilità tra i vari settori è limitata. Vedi Rebitzer-Taylor (1991), p. 1373 Vedi ad esempio Rebitzer (1993), p. 1411. ...
Segmentazione del mercato del lavoro ed acquisizione di capitale umano: un'applicazione delle catene di Markov (di Andrea Lavezzi) - ABSTRACT: This paper explores the possibility to apply Markov Chains to the study of human capital acquisition by a population of workers. In this sense it extends to human capital diffusion a framework already used to investigate other social processes. It is argued that the use of probabilities seems appropriate to synthesize the joint effects of the multiplicity of forces impinging on the process. The functioning of a labor market is therefore represented by a particular specification of state space and of different transition matrices of a Markov Chain. Labor market segmentation as to the possibility of skills acquisition is taken as a starting point to describe different dynamics, derived from the interaction of forces pushing towards upskilling and deskilling of the labor force. Emphasis is on the long run, stationary distributions of the population of workers.JEL Classification: J24, J42
... The core-periphery hypothesis postulates that firms recruit temporary workers in times of increasing temporary labor demand and release them in times of decreasing demand. These temporary workers (periphery) are employed in addition to the permanent workforce (core) and serve as a buffer in an internal dual labor market, from which permanent workers gain job security (Rebitzer and Taylor 1991;Saint-Paul 1991;Booth et al. 2003;Cappelli and Neumark 2004;Pfeifer 2009). Thus, permanent workers should have fewer concerns about their job security if their firm uses temporary workers and if the share of temporary workers increases in their firm. ...
This research note addresses the question of how permanent workers perceive their individual job security if their firm employs temporary workers with fixed-term contracts and temporary agency workers. One the one hand, the core-periphery hypothesis predicts that permanent workers should have fewer concerns about job security if the firm employs temporary workers to deal with demand fluctuations. On the other hand, a counteracting substitution effect might increase concerns about job security. Using linked employer-employee data and estimating regression models at the worker level with establishment fixed effects, evidence supports the core-periphery hypothesis for temporary agency work but not for fixed-term contracts.
... Try (2004) evidences that graduates consider some flexible jobs as a good investment opportunity to enter the labour market. However, flexible work might also be associated with 'bad jobs' (Doeringer and Piore 1971;Rebitzer and Taylor 1991). Indeed, graduate workers covered by shortterm work arrangements might risk moving from one flexible job to another, with periods of unemployment or inactivity. ...
This paper explores the temporary-permanent wage gap experienced by Italian graduate workers. To evaluate the wage gap along the entire wage distribution and account for heterogeneous effects of temporary employment, we apply the Recentered Influence Function (RIF) regression approach. The results suggest that the monthly net wage earned by Italian highly educated workers having a temporary contract is lower than that of their 'permanent' counterparts even after controlling for a plethora of individual and job characteristics. More than 50% of the wage gap is due to unobserved characteristics. The field of study, more than the location of the University, explains this discrimination effect due to contractual arrangement. Although the latter is verified along the entire distribution, major effects arise among high-paid and low-paid jobs depicting a U-shape pattern. Results are robust to self-selection, endogeneity, and gender controls.
... The Efficiency Wage theory asserts that high monitoring costs and uncertain product demand might induce profit-maximizing firms to hire both temporary and permanent workers, with the former receiving a lower wage, even if they are homogeneous and perfect substitutes (Rebitzer & Taylor, 1991). Guell (2000) argues that the opportunity for contract renewal may be used as a 'carrot' to incentivize higher productivity from workers instead of wages. ...
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the wage gap between temporary and permanent workers in Pakistan and Cambodia.
Design/methodology/approach
Quantile regression estimator is likely to be the most relevant to the sample.
Findings
The estimates indicate the presence of a temporary employment wage penalty in Pakistan and contrarily a wage premium in Cambodia. Moreover, quantile regression estimates show that wage differentials could greatly vary across the wage distribution. The wage gap is wider at the bottom of the wage distribution in Pakistan, suggesting a sticky floor effect that the penalty of being in temporary jobs could be more severe for disadvantaged workers. By contrast, a glass ceilings effect is found in Cambodia, indicating that the wage premium is small at the bottom and becomes high at the top of the pay ladder.
Originality/value
Despite the rise of temporary jobs in the past several decades, the empirical evidence on wage differentials between temporary and permanent workers is extremely limited in developing Asian countries. This paper is the first research work that systematically examines the temporary-permanent wage gap in selected Asian countries, based on their National Labor Force Survey data.
... Some explanations for the negative wage gap between temporary, part-time workers, on the one hand, and regular, full-time workers, on the other hand, have relied on contract theory and asymmetric information (Jovanovic, 1979) but also on efficiency wage arguments (Rebitzer and Taylor, 1991). Other authors associate the wage gap to investments in a lower amount of firm-specific training (Belot et al., 2007). ...
This paper uses data from the European Survey on Income and Living Conditions to offer new empirical evidence on how wage differentials are influenced by the changing economic conditions, that is, before and after the 2008-2010 recession, and shaped by the different institutional frameworks of European Union countries. We examine whether wage changes are homogeneous across groups of workers, as they are classified by their contractual relationship and working time, and by the heterogeneity in institutions that regulate and affect the labour market. Results obtained by estimating ordinary least squares and quantile regressions confirm the existence of contract and working time wage gaps and allow to estimate their different magnitudes along the wage distribution, and their rise during the recession. The impact of labour market institutions on shaping them is diverse, with more intervention of the government in the setting of the minimum wage and stricter regulation for atypical contracts reducing the wage gaps and producing larger positive effects for low-wage employees.
... The bipolarization of the immigrants workforce analysed in chapter 3 led us to test this model and his extensions within the Swiss labor market. Let us cite Rebitzer and Taylor (1991) which gives a brief description of the dual labor markets model: Introduction is characterized by an excess supply of quali ed workers to primary jobs. Mobility b e t ween contingent and primary jobs will therefore be limited, and "good" workers may b e stuck in "bad" jobs. ...
... (Brown and Session, 2005;Booth et al., 2002;Picchio, 2008, Bosio, 2014. One reason explaining this wage penalty relies on the efficiency wage theory (Rebitzer and Taylor, 1991;Guell, 2000). The possibility for a contract renewal may be used as an effort-incentive device instead of wages. ...
In this paper we employ EU-Silc microdata for 19 EU member countries in 2007 and 2012 to provide evidence on hourly wage disparities within high-, medium- and low-educated workers. Using quantile regression approaches, we look at individual and institutional determinants of earnings inequality within each cohort and across the wage distribution. Then, by focusing on the employment status (temporary/permanent) of workers, we find that remarkable differences exist in the role played by employment protection of temporary and regular jobs in shaping wage levels, depending on the group of countries, education groups and year considered, with important and group-specific policy implications.
... Dans les deux cas il s'agit pour l'employeur d'augmenter la productivité du travailleur par une différenciation des conditions d'emploi. De tels modèles ont d'ailleurs été mobilisés pour rendre compte du dualisme du marché du travail (Bulow et Summer, 1986, Rebitzer et Taylor, 1991, Güell, 2000. Ainsi, dans le modèle de Güell (2000), la probabilité de transformation des CDD en CDI joue ici le rôle d'incitation pour les salariés en CDD que le salaire joue pour les salariés en CDI. ...
This work wonders about the factors of the use of Fixed-Term Contract (FTC) in France over the recent period over the last 25 years. The share of FTCs in employment proved an almost continuous growth since the end of the 1970's in this country. According to the most common representation, FTCs meet the needs of adjustment of employment to economic activity fluctuations. In contrast with this relatively recent conception of the function of FTCs, a first contribution of this work is an historical perspective over two centuries of the successive role played by FTC.
So as to analyze the reasons of the resort to this kind of employment contract by the firms – and trying to make for the lack in available data – we made an original database informing of the share of employment in FTCs by firms, which is an essential contribution of this work. On the one hand a first exploration of this database shows the absence of cyclical dimension to FTCs' resort for two thirds of the firms, on the other hand, studying the contracts' durations as well as the FTCs' turning into permanent contracts displays the decrease of the FTCs' integration role into the firms.
From a theoretical point of view, we confront the prevailing conception mentioned above – and preferred by neoclassic economists - to other conceptions seeing the resort to FTC as the dimension of manpower management policies that would not very concerned by workers attachment to the firms.
Econometrics' tests lead to the questioning of the adjustment need conception. The representation of FTCs as the dimension of a structural strategy of manpower management gathers more favourable elements.
... An opposite hypothesis is that the wage policy of the firm is dominated not by compensating differentials but by efficiency wage considerations in a dual labour market. An efficiency wage model in a dual labour market is provided by Rebitzer and Taylor (1991). In that model firms distinguish between primary workers and contingent workers. ...
We analyse the correlations between individual and firm fixed effects, and wage and job-duration functions. Our results for large firms suggest that low-wage firms tend to be stable firms, suggesting that lower wages can buy job stability. Furthermore, high-wage workers sort into the stable low-wage firms. Our interpretation is that high-wage workers have a higher wage to insure against job loss and can afford more easily to forgo wages in favour of job stability. This may provide an explanation of the puzzle identified in previous literature that high-wage workers are matched to low-wage firms. JEL classification: C23, J31, J62, J63.
... De este modo, las empresas deberían construir sus estrategias alrededor de un profundo conocimiento en un número no elevado de competencias correspondientes al núcleo de su negocio (Rueda, 1995). Se ha buscado relacionar desde un punto de vista técnico, el uso del empleo temporal y la subcontratación con diversos aspectos como la variabilidad e incertidumbre de la demanda (Rebitzer y Taylor, 1991). Uno de los argumentos a favor de la subcontratación de las funciones asociadas al área de recursos humanos es que, para la mayoría de las compañías, no se trata de actividades estratégicas. ...
La subcontratación es una estrategia que cada vez está más de moda en las organizaciones. Por la importancia que va cobrando este fenómeno, se hace necesaria una investigación donde se analicen los factores que intervienen en la subcontratación, así como cuáles son sus beneficios. La presente investigación analiza el impacto de la subcontratación en la flexibilidad y los costos de un grupo de organizaciones que subcontratan sus servicios de reclutamiento, selección y administración de nomina a una empresa de subcontratación en Ensenada, Baja California, México. Los resultados revelan que en México es frecuente que empresas opten por entregar a un tercero la operación básica de administración de personal eventual y nóminas. Este cambio en las empresas obedece al beneficio de estas para mejorar la eficiencia de sus procesos y costos con la finalidad de ser más competitivas en una economía globalizada. Para este análisis, se aplicó la Escala de Espino y Padrón, 2002 sobre las ventajas de la subcontratación adaptando las preguntas a las actividades de administración de nómina, reclutamiento y selección, quedando 12 reactivos con escala de Likert de 5 opciones a una muestra de 8 empresas en Ensenada, Baja California, México. Las correlaciones demuestran alta significancia entre as variables de Calidad en el Servicio, flexibilidad y reducción de costos Outsourcing is an increasingly popular strategy in organizations. Given the importance of this phenomenon, research is needed to analyze the factors involved in outsourcing, and the associated benefits. This research analyzes the impact of outsourcing on the flexibility and costs of a group of organizations that outsource their recruitment and payroll services in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico. Results show it is common for Mexico companies to hire an external provider of temporary personnel management and payroll. This change in business practice is due to improve process efficiency and reduced costs. We applied the scale Espino and Padron, 2002. Results show highly significant correlations between the variables of Service Quality, flexibility and cost reduction.
... Eine weitere Möglichkeit zur Vermeidung von Entlassungen innerhalb der Stammbelegschaft ist die Nutzung von Teilzeitbeschäftigten als flexible Randbelegschaft im Sinne der Theorie interner dualer Arbeitsmärkte(Rebitzer/Taylor 1991a;Saint-Paul 1996;Pfeifer 2006). So kann bereits bei einem positiven temporären Nachfrageschock antizipiert werden, dass die Beschäftigung später erneut verringert werden muss, was mit Anpassungskosten für die Firma verbunden ist. ...
Der Beitrag untersucht die betrieblichen Determinanten von Teilzeitbeschäftigung, Mini- und Midi-Jobs. Für die empirische Analyse wird die niedersächsische Teilstich- probe des IAB-Betriebspanels der Jahre 2000 bis 2004 verwendet. Aus theoretischer Perspektive könnten alle drei Beschäftigungsformen als Instrument der Anpassungs- flexibilität bei Nachfrageschocks genutzt werden. Die empirische Analyse zeigt jedoch, dass der Einfluss kurzfristiger Nachfrageschocks auf die Nutzungswahrscheinlichkeit und Nutzungsintensität recht gering ist. Ein Hemmnis für die Reduzierung der Arbeits- stunden sind quasi-fixe Beschäftigungskosten, sodass Betriebe mit einem höheren An- teil qualifizierter Arbeitskräfte weniger Gebrauch von Teilzeitbeschäftigung machen. Insgesamt deuten die Ergebnisse darauf hin, dass vor allem die Arbeitszeitpräferenzen der Beschäftigten die Teilzeitbeschäftigung determinieren und geringfügige Beschäfti- gung verstärkt in "betriebsratsfreien Zonen" stattfindet. Wahrscheinlich ist ferner, dass die gesetzlichen Neuregelungen zur Teilzeitarbeit im Jahr 2001 und zu Mini-Jobs im Jahr 2003 die Ausweitung beider Beschäftigungsformen begünstigen.
... Indeed, Try (2004) finds evidence that recent graduates consider some flexible jobs (e.g., research fellowships) as a good investment opportunity. However, according to dual labour market theory, flexible work 1 may be related to so-called 'bad jobs' in the secondary labour market segment (Doeringer and Piore 1971; Reich et al. 1973; Rebitzer and Taylor 1991). This is especially likely for groups that traditionally have a weak position in the labour market, including young people entering the labour market, immigrants, low-skilled workers and female workers. ...
The share of flexible jobs on the Dutch labour market is among the highest in Westerncountries, in particular for recent graduates. In this study we examine why recentgraduates enter into temporary contracts and whether flexible jobs match theirqualifications worse than permanent jobs do. Graduates that enter into flexible jobsface large wage penalties, a worse job match and less training participation than thoseentering into permanent jobs, even after correcting for ability differences. When thelabour market situation for a particular field of education deteriorates, a larger shareof recent graduates is forced into flexible jobs, which may threaten their position onthe labour market in the long run. Flexible work among graduates is unrelated to theirwillingness to take risks. Only for university graduates are there any indications thatflexible jobs may provide stepping stones to permanent jobs.
... The observed negative wage differential can also be explained on the grounds of either efficiency wage or insider-outsider arguments. In the former case, Rebitzer and Taylor (1991) show that it could be optimal for a profit maximising firms to hire both temporary and permanent workers and pay a lower wage to temporary worker even if workers are homogenous and perfect substitutes when the monitoring of workers is costly and the product demand is uncertain. According to Guell (2000) the possibility of a renewal could be used as an effort incentive device instead of wages. ...
The aim of this paper is to analyse the wage gap between temporary and permanent jobs in 14 European countries. We use semi-parametric (quantile regr ession) approach and evaluate the wage gap across the entire wage distribution. We show th at the fixed-term wage gap decreases as we consider higher quantiles and that having a fixed-term con tract penalizes more low skilled workers (at the bottom of the earnings distribution) than high skilled. Finally, we decomposed the wage differential along the entire wage distribution, us ing the procedure developed by Machado and Mata (2005) to account for the relative importance of obs erved characteristics versus different returns to skills. We find that workers with the same cha racteristics of temporary workers would have received higher wages if they had worked with a permane nt contract in almost all the countries considered and that this discrimination is higher at the bottom of the wage distribution.
... For this, we consider a firm that faces stochastic shocks and can employ two types of labor, rigid labor and flexible labor; the former type involves a firing cost while the latter does not. Several studies have been conducted on the optimization problem of a firm employing two types of labor, for example, Rebitzer and Taylor (1991) and Saint-Paul (1991). They show how labor market dualism arises within a firm when two types of labor have different adjustment costs (for rigid workers and flexible workers). ...
... These secondary sector firms will be less concerned about worker turnover. In an extension of this argument (Rebitzer and Taylor, 1991) we show that firms which employ efficiency wages as a motivating device will also be led to hoard labor, i.e., employ labor above the value-of-marginal-product curve. By taking actions to ensure future employment—perhaps by hiring contingent workers to absorb demand shocks—firms can reduce the wage needed to provide optimal motivation to workers. ...
Economists understand that mechanisms used by employers to resolve agency problems have surprising and profound consequences; when employers shape personnel policies to motivate workers, these efiorts in turn afiect organizational structures and such key labor market outcomes as wage inequality and involuntary unemployment. These insights emerge even in models that ascribe simple motives to employees, e.g., that workers seek to earn money with minimal efiort. But worker motives are doubtless multifaceted. Human motivation also includes the desire to compare favorably to others, aspirations to contribute to intrinsically worthwhile goals, and inclinations to reciprocate generosity or exact retribution for perceived wrongs. People are driven, in ways that may be opaque even to themselves, by the need to reinforce identity. In this essay we explore the possibility that such behavioral features have important implications for the way we understand agency, and the role of agency plays in labor markets.
... In other words, when efficiency considerations play an important role in the primary sector, i.e. wage theory. 5 We can notice that the aim of this paper is not to provide an explanation of the existence of dual labor market (Albrecht and Vroman (1992), Rebitzer and Taylor (1991), Saint-Paul (1991, 1996, Teulings (1993)) but rather to show implications of such labor market structure on the dynamic stability. Furthermore, it is important to note that our version of efficiency wage does not correspond to a dynamic approach of Shapiro and Stiglitz (1984). ...
We study the influence of wage differential on the emergence of endogenous fluctuations. In this way, we introduce a dual labor market, based on the Shapiro–Stiglitz efficiency wage theory in an overlapping generations model. We show that wage inequality is a source of endogenous fluctuations. Indeed, a sufficiently strong wage differential leads to the occurrence of cycles of period 2 and local indeterminacy. Moreover, in contrast to several existing contributions, these results depend neither on increasing returns to scale nor on the degree of capital–labor substitution.
... Some may suggest that through this development, economy will be divided into core and periphery workers who are differentiated by income, job security, and access to human resource development opportunities. While for others, it promotes greater flexibility for firms as well as employees while lowers wage and benefit costs and creates new job opportunities (Rebitzer & Taylor, 1991). Although the non-standard workforce is essential, organizational researchers is still lagged behind in their full understanding of this scenario. ...
The development of non standard employment has been rigorous in current employment scenario with the reasons of employer willing to reduce cost, meet the various customers demand and to provide flexibility as part of work-life balance initiative. However non-standard workers have been regarded as less committed and less satisfied and the true effect in providing work-life balance is still less clear. To overcome the limitation and incoherent results of prior studies in these areas, works status congruence is proposed using congruency theory while satisfaction towards work-life balance is proposed as the unifying construct in determining the effect of different work status which is matched with what the workers want and what the employer is offering. Using this congruency perspective, it is assumed that an employee will be more satisfied with his or her work-life balance if he or she is working in a work status as well as work schedule, shift and hours that he or she prefer. This will later affects the worker's positive work related attitudes, in term of affective and continuance commitment as well as job satisfaction.
... Then, employees can isolate their position against outsider competition and bid up rewards. models (Rebitzer and Taylor, 1991). Following this idea, employees in the primary segment do not only enjoy higher employment stability but also receive a wage premium, which plays a role of incentive and thus increases their productivity. ...
Fixed-term contracts have become very relevant in the transition from school to work. Using data from the British Household Panel Study and the German Socio-Economic Panel for the period 1991-2006, this article evaluates the early career effects of temporary jobs at labour market entry in terms of wages, unemployment risks, and employment chances. Comparing graduates with similar individual and job characteristics using propensity score matching techniques shows that labour market entrants earn significantly less in temporary jobs compared to permanent employment in both countries. However, British graduates with temporary contracts suffer from weaker and vanishing wage losses because many of them are able to catch up. Furthermore, we find that British graduates in temporary positions are able to avoid subsequent unemployment but suffer from lower employment chances compared to those with permanent jobs, while German graduates with temporary contracts suffer both from higher unemployment risks and lower employment chances.
This article provides long-term evidence on how wage differentials between permanent and temporary workers are shaped by institutions that play a key role in labour market dualism, i.e. industrial relations, employment protection legislation and unemployment benefits. A two-step multilevel approach with fixed effects is employed using EU-SILC data for 25 European countries spanning up to 17 years (waves 2004–2020, N = 397) to estimate the moderating effects of several institutions and their interactions on the wage gap by contract type and across the whole wage distribution. The results show that more insider-oriented institutions tend to widen wage differentials and that the impact of institutional reforms on the wage gap varies greatly with the given institutional context. Overall, policy trends towards flexibilization risk widening insider–outsider divides due to accumulating labour market risks for temporary workers, thus increasing labour market segmentation by contract type.
Geçici istihdam işçiler açısından genellikle istihdam ve gelir süreksizliği, düşük ücret düzeyi ve iş güvencesizliği gibi olumsuz işgücü piyasası koşulları ile ilişkilendirilmektedir. Geçici istihdam işverenler açısından ise işgücü esnekliği, düşük işgücü maliyeti ve işçileri izleme ve deneme imkânı gibi birtakım avantajlar sağlamaktadır. Bu çalışmanın amacı Türkiye işgücü piyasasında geçici istihdamın yapısını ve belirleyenlerini araştırmaktır. Geçici istihdamın belirleyenleri, Türkiye İstatistik Kurumu (TÜİK) tarafından gerçekleştirilen 2011-2019 dönemi Gelir ve Yaşam Koşulları Araştırmasından (GYKA) elde edilen kesit veriler kullanılarak örnek seçimli probit modeli ile tahmin edilmiştir. Ulaşılan sonuçlara göre cinsiyet, medeni durum, yaş, eğitim seviyesi, iş tecrübesi, iş güvencesi, meslek, sektör ve iş yeri büyüklüğünün geçici istihdamda olma olasılığı ile ilişkili olduğu ortaya çıkmıştır. Bunun yanı sıra bu faktörler arasından cinsiyet ve medeni durum dışındaki diğer tüm faktörlerin geçici istihdam üzerindeki etkisinin önemli düzeyde olduğu gözlenmiştir.
Numerous observers and critics of higher education, including some policymakers, have suggested that hiring and maintaining faculty on tenure lines is a primary source of inefficiency in colleges and universities. These “disrupters” argue that reducing commitments to tenure will lead to cost savings and more effective adaptations to changing markets for various degrees. Does increasing hiring of “contingent” (non-tenure-line) faculty indeed bring financial benefits? In this analysis, we use longitudinal data to examine that hypothesis in financially stressed public master’s and doctoral institutions over the period 2003 to 2014. The analysis provides no support for the hypothesis. The implications of these results for research and practice are discussed.
en I show that under a canonical efficiency‐wage model, a per capita employment tax levied on the employer raises the wage. In contrast, under market clearing, wages fall regardless of whether effort is contractible. I examine the effect of increases in the earnings base for the payroll tax in the United States on wages of high‐wage workers for whom the change represents an increase in a per capita tax. In most specifications, the results suggest that wages rose, consistent with the efficiency‐wage model, but they are generally too imprecise to rule out large effects of wages on non‐contractible productivity that are insufficient to prevent market clearing. Provided labour demand is inelastic, the results are inconsistent with a model of contractible effort.
Résumé
fr Effort et salaire : l’exemple des prélèvements sociaux. Dans un modèle canonique de salaire d’efficience, je montre qu’une taxe à l’emploi par tête imposée à l’employeur est un facteur d’augmentation des salaires. En revanche, dans un modèle de salaire d’équilibre, les paies diminuent, que l’effort soit intégré par contrat ou non. Dans cet article, j’examine l’effet des relèvements successifs de la base de revenu assujettie aux prélèvements sociaux aux États‐Unis pour les travailleurs les mieux rémunérés, et pour qui de tels changements se caractérisent par une hausse de l’impôt par tête. Dans la plupart des cas, les résultats suggèrent une augmentation des salaires, conformément au modèle de salaire d’efficience. Néanmoins, de tels résultats sont généralement trop imprécis pour exclure les effets importants des salaires sur la productivité non intégrée par contrat, insuffisants pour empêcher un équilibre du marché. Si la demande de main d’oeuvre est inélastique, les résultats ne concordent pas avec le modèle d’effort intégré par contrat.
Lo studio presentato in questo volume si pone come obiettivo principale quello di delineare un quadro analitico ed empirico coerente all’interno del quale mettere in relazione i principali “oggetti” delle politiche per il lavoro e l’evoluzione del tessuto produttivo e della competitività in Italia, ponendo un’attenzione specifica al tema dell’investimento in formazione on the job e al ruolo della eterogeneità delle imprese e delle scelte imprenditoriali. In questa prospettiva le analisi sono articolate in una logica di comparazione settoriale e geografica, utilizzando dati sulle imprese e sui lavoratori.
Il lavoro è scaricabile al seguente link http://oa.inapp.org/xmlui/handle/123456789/320
We propose a modified version of the Shapiro-Stiglitz’s (1984) efficiency wage model by introducing temporary contracts in the standard setup. New theoretical insights emerge on the incentive problem faced by workers and firms. We argue that the existence of temporary contracts broaden the incentive menu available to employers and that the optimal incentive structure can be sustained as an equi- librium outcome only if permanent contracts do not disappear. We also provide an alternative explanation of the wage penalty suffered by temporary workers even if standard models of efficiency wages would predict higher compensations for workers facing a higher job loss risk.
There has been some evidence to suggest that women and people of color have accepted, even embraced their status as marginalized employees in the American dual labor economy by institutionalizing their expanding participation in secondary labor market activity. To determine the validity of this claim, the author explores the historical antecedents of dual labor markets, describes the hegemonic patterns evident in industrialized nations that reflect bifurcated labor market patterns, examines the institutionalization of other second-tier industries that have facilitated improvements for marginalized laborers in the past, and suggests that the recent institutionalization of yet another industry, urban farmers' markets, provides compelling evidence that second-tier workers have successful adapted under prevailing inhospitable and discriminatory labor market conditions. Data compiled from case studies drawn from registration lists and observational field techniques at two farmers' markets located in the State of Louisiana supports the author's second-tier adaptation paradigm.
We study the influence of wage differential on the emergence of endogenous fluctuations. In this way, we introduce a dual labor market, based on the Shapiro-Stiglitz efficiency wage theory in an overlapping generations model. We show that wage inequality is a source of endogenous fluctuations. Indeed, a sufficiently strong wage differential leads to the occurrence of cycles of period 2 and local indeterminacy. Moreover, in contrast to several existing contributions, these results depend neither on increasing returns to scale nor on the degree of capital-labor substitution.
Based on dual labor market theory, fixed-term contracts (FTCs) in the manufacturing sector in Egypt were analyzed to test the following hypothesis: Employers in the manufacturing firms use FTCs to adjust the level of employment to the profit maximizing level in case of demand changes. The hypothesis was not supported by the results of econometric analyses with a firm-level data set from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys for years 2004, 2007 and 2008. Probit and Tobit models were used to estimate the probability and intensity of using different kinds of numerical labor market flexibility. Empirical results revealed that demand changes had no effects on using FTCs in the manufacturing firms in Egypt. Furthermore, the results indicated that demand changes had also no effects on using hiring and firing as labor market flexibility instruments. In the light of knowing the determinants of using FTCs in Egypt, policies can be shaped to introduce incentives to employers in the Egyptian manufacturing firms to use (FTCs).
Many commentators have remarked on the seemingly disproportionate job losses suffered by men in the initial days of the Great Recession; some conservative commentators have gone so far as to label it a “he-cession” or “man-cession.” In this paper, I assess the claim that the Great Recession has had a disproportionate impact on men. I begin by examining the position and status of women and men in the U.S. economy today in terms of labor force participation, occupational placement, relative wages, and financial responsibility for children. I discuss how women’s (especially women of color’s) economic status has rendered them particularly vulnerable to the impact of the Great Recession. I critique the notion of the “he-cession” and expose the faulty, ahistorical assumptions on which it is based. Finally, I examine the impact of state and local austerity on public sector employment and speculate as to the implications of austerity for the relative economic standing of women of various races/ethnicities.
I use linked employer-employee data from the German Federal Statistical Office to estimate within-firm wage differentials between temporary workers with fixed-term contracts and workers with permanent contracts in the context of dual internal labor markets. Wage-tenure profiles of permanent workers are estimated separately for each firm to obtain a proxy for the prevalence of internal labor markets. Temporary workers earn significantly lower wages in firms with steeper wage-tenure profiles. This finding is consistent with the segmentation in a primary permanent workforce with high wages and a secondary temporary workforce with low wages, if internal labor markets are more prevalent.
This empirical research note uses linked employer-employee data from the German Federal Statistical Office to estimate wage differentials between workers with fixed-term contracts and permanent contracts. The data set allows to analyze wage differentials within firms and across the wage distribution. The main findings are: (1) Worker characteristics account for about half of the unconditional mean wage differential. The wage disadvantage of workers with fixed-term contracts is further reduced by the inclusion of occupations and firm fixed effects to approximately ten percent. (2) The wage disadvantage is larger at the lower tail of the wage distribution and quite constant in the middle and upper parts of the wage distribution.
Integral to strategic cost management is the choice of procuring flexible versus committed resources conditioned on demand uncertainty. Prior research shows that costs respond less to decreases than increases in sales activity when firms invest in committed resources. We analyze asymmetry in cost behavior to investigate how resource procurement decisions between flexible and committed resources are related to precedent and antecedent information about demand uncertainty. We find that the asymmetry of cost responsiveness increases with historical sales growth and with the firm's market-to-book ratio, and decreases with historical sales volatility. We find similar results for firm-specific deviations of sales growth, sales volatility and the market-to-book ratio from the industry averages. These results illustrate how managers might combine precedent and antecedent information in formulating a resource procurement plan as a means of strategic cost management.
Unemployment and Agricultural Exports: The Case of the Outlying Areas of Europe by Patrice Borda and Jean-Gabriel Montauban
An analysis of the structure of underemployment in Europe's outlying areas reveals the existence of a dual market in these small economies. The purpose of this article is to present a dual market model taking account of unofficial activities and the constraint on the output of secondary sector firms. In this way, we highlight the factors that encourage the emergence of underemployment.
We propose a modified version of the Shapiro-Stiglitz’s (1984) efficiency wage model by introducing temporary contracts in the standard setup. New theoretical insights emerge on the incentive problem faced by workers and firms. We argue that the existence of temporary contracts broaden the incentive menu available to employers and that the optimal incentive structure can be sustained as an equi- librium outcome only if permanent contracts do not disappear. We also provide an alternative explanation of the wage penalty suffered by temporary workers even if standard models of efficiency wages would predict higher compensations for workers facing a higher job loss risk.
Der Einfluss atypischer Arbeit auf die Funktionsfähigkeit des Arbeitsmarktes hängt von der Art ihrer Nutzung ab. In dieser Arbeit definieren wir zunächst drei Nutzungs-motive: die Anpassung an Schwankungen der Geschäftstätigkeit, die Verbesserung der Personalauswahl durch die Verlängerung von Probezeiten und die Substitution unbe-fristeter Arbeit aus Kostengründen. Wir diskutieren, welche Effizienzwirkungen diese Nutzungsarten haben. Für jedes Motiv lassen sich in der theoretischen Betrachtung mögliche Effizienzgewinne, aber auch Effizienzverluste anführen. Für die befristeten Verträge als der in Deutschland am weitesten verbreiteten atypischen Beschäftigungs-form untersuchen wir auf der Basis von Individualdaten auf Betriebs-und Personen-ebene, inwieweit die Nutzung in Deutschland mit diesen Nutzungsmotiven überein-stimmt und welche Evidenz es für die Effizienzwirkungen atypischer Arbeit gibt. Die Ergebnisse deuten am ehesten auf die Funktion der Personalauslese. Diese Gesichts-punkte werden auch in Bezug auf Leiharbeit, rechtlich selbständige Beschäftigung und auf Minijobs diskutiert. Dabei zeigen sich deutliche Unterschiede in den Gründen für die Nutzung unterschiedlicher Formen atypischer Arbeit.
One of the most important economic developments in recent years is the growth in the number of temporary and contract employees. Little is known, however, about the implications these contingent employees have for human resource practices. This paper presents the results of a study of one group of contingent workers, contract workers in the petrochemical industry. The primary concern of this study is the consequences contract workers have for safety, a hotly debated and politically charged issue in an industry where safety mishaps can have catastrophic consequences. We find that contract employees offer petrochemical firms an important degree of flexibility in meeting rapid fluctuations in their demand for labor. Contract employment relationships also create stresses with potentially severe adverse effects on workplace safety. Overcoming these threats to safety while maintaining flexibility will require a high level of coordination among human resource professionals, line managers, corporate executives, unions, and government agencies.
The legal rules for assigning liability for the costs of accidents penalize petrochemical plants that exercise direct control over contract employees. Evidence from diverse sources indicates that these liability rules lead plant management to give primary responsibility for the safety training and supervision of contract employees to contractors. However, analysis of the determinants of accidents suggests that host plants offer more effective safety training and supervision than do contractors. It follows that accident rates in the petrochemical industry would be reduced if liability rules were altered so that host plants had greater incentives to take primary responsibility for the safety training and supervision of contract workers.
We set up a general equilibrium labor market model where moral hazard problems are a key concern. We show that variation in moral hazard across industries explains contract terms, work patterns over time, and promotion structures. We explain why jobs such as investment banking pay more and give higher utility to the employee than other jobs, even if employees have no skill advantage. These jobs also have high firing rates, and inefficiently long hours. We also show that agents who are unlucky early on, either because they do not land a high-profile job or because they lose a high-profile job, suffer life-long disadvantages in the labor market. We also show why employers may rationally reject "over qualified" job applicants - Smart workers may be "too hard to manage", because their high outside options make them respond less to firing incentives.
Following empirical findings in the US wage distribution, a large debate spreads on the inequality issue. We will focus on the raise of the residual inequality, i.e. the one left unexplained by observable characteristics. In the literature, two main explanations are proposed, one based on technology, which relies on unobservable skills, in the context of Skill Biased Technical Change, and the other one based on a more standard labor economics approach that invokes a falling minimum wage effect. Although recognizing that these are important parts of the story, we will depart from both. Instead we will underline the pervasive role that institutions play in the work processes, both for the segmentation that takes place there and for the division of rents. We will stress the importance of the conflictual industrial relations in understanding the reorganization that occurred at the shop floor level from the late Seventies on, and the consequences on the wage distribution. We will present simple analytical tools that are helpful to address wage differentials, using an efficiency wage model. Finally, we will come back to US data (using March CPS) to test our theoretical predictions.
This paper offers an explanation of the use of mandatory-retirement clauses in labor contracts. It argues that the date of mandatory retirement is chosen to correspond to the date of voluntary retirement, but the nature of the optimal wage profile results in a discrepancy between spot wage and spot VMP (value of the worker's marginal product). This is because it is preferable to pay workers less than VMP when young and more than VMP when old. By doing so, the "agency" problem is solved, so the contract with mandatory retirement is Pareto efficient. A theory of agency is presented and empirical evidence which supports the hypothesis is provided.
The simplest economic theories of crime predict that profit-maximizing firms should follow strategies of minimal monitoring with large penalties for employee crime. The authors investigate possible reasons why firms actually spend considerable resources trying to detect employee malfeasance. They find that the most plausible explanations for firms' large outlays on monitoring of employees--legal restrictions on penalty clauses in contracts and the adverse impact of harsh punishment schemes on worker morale--are also consistent with the payment of premium (rent-generating) wages by cost-minimizing firms. Coauthors are Lawrence F. Katz, Kevin Lang, and Lawrence H. Summers. Copyright 1989 by University of Chicago Press.
This paper develops a model of dual labor markets based on employers' need to motivate workers. In order to elicit effort from their workers, employers may find it optimal to pay more than the going wage. This changes fundamentally the character of labor markets. The model is applied to a wide range of labor market phenomena. It provides a coherent framework for understanding the claims of industrial policy advocates. It also can provide the basis for a theory of occupational segregation and discrimination that will not be eroded by market forces. Finally, the model provides the basis for a theory of involuntary unemployment. Copyright 1986 by University of Chicago Press.
This paper defines a concept, a worker's trust fund, which is useful in analyzing optimal age-earnings profiles. The trust
fund represents what a worker loses if dismissed from a job for shirking. In considering whether to work or shirk, a worker
weighs the potential loss due to forfeiture of the trust fund if caught shirking against the benefits from reduced effort.
This concept is used to show that the implicit bonding in upward sloping age-earnings profiles is not a perfect substitute
for an explicit up-front performance bond (or employment fee). It is also shown that the second-best optimal earnings profile
in the absence of an up-front employment fee pays total compensation in excess of market clearing in a variety of stylized
cases.
This study of the rapidly growing temporary help industry draws on Commerce Department data and the results of the authors' national mail survey of employers. The authors also conducted interviews in the San Francisco area with employers of temporary help and with representatives of temporary help agencies and labor unions. They provide a taxonomy of employer responses to temporary increases in work loads, ranging from the more intensive use of full-time employees to a variety of arrangements with part-time, temporary, and casual employees. The authors show how these employer responses vary by industry, occupation, size of the firm, stability of product demand, and the level of fringe benefits. (Abstract courtesy JSTOR.)