What Drives the Demand for Temporary Agency Workers?

As part of the general trend towards increased employment flexibility temporary agency employment has grown steadily in most European countries. The paper examines, first, whether the deregulation of temporary agency employment is responsible for the growth of the flexible staffing industry. Second,...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inLabour (Rome, Italy) Vol. 26; no. 3; pp. 341 - 355
Main Authors Jahn, Elke J., Bentzen, Jan
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.09.2012
Subjects
Business cycles
C41
Correlation
Deregulation
Economic behaviour
Employment
Employment agencies
Employment services
Europe
Federal Republic of Germany
Germany
J23
J40
J48
K31
Labour demand
Labour market flexibility
Law
Liberalization
Market regulation
Motivation
Studies
Temporary employment
Workers
Europe
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:As part of the general trend towards increased employment flexibility temporary agency employment has grown steadily in most European countries. The paper examines, first, whether the deregulation of temporary agency employment is responsible for the growth of the flexible staffing industry. Second, we investigate the cyclical behavior of temporary agency employment. Using monthly data for Germany, we show that the liberalization of the law regulating the sector is not the main reason for the surge of this employment form. Our analysis reveals, moreover, that temporary agency employment exhibits strong cyclical behavior and correlates with main economic indicators in real time.
Bibliography:ark:/67375/WNG-QQS8ZS91-8
istex:38C24202FE329C2CFA2B486AC6A0FBB91DAE43EC
ArticleID:LABR550
We would like to thank Deborah Bowen, Enzo Weber, the anonymous referees, and the editor for helpful comments and suggestions which improved our manuscript substantially.
ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
content type line 23
ObjectType-Article-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
ISSN:1121-7081
1467-9914
DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9914.2012.00550.x