(Re)considering New Agents: A Review of Labour Market Intermediaries within Labour Geography

Abstract

5The world of work continues to change. Labour markets in most countries are increasingly 6 shaped by policies of neoliberal deregulation while strategies of flexibility dominate public 7 policy and corporate strategy across an array of sectors. At the forefront of these changes are 8 the myriad labour market intermediaries that are used by workers and employees to enhance 9 their ability to navigate ever more complex and volatile labour markets. For some, mediated 10 employment, recruitment and work practices mean greater career progression and profit 11 making ability, but for many others it means increased precarity, vulnerability and insecurity. 12This paper critically reviews existing literature within geography on three types of private 13 labour market intermediary, namely; temporary staffing agencies and contract brokers; 14 executive search firms and headhunters and; informal intermediaries such as gangmasters. 15The final section addresses the future for research in labour geography and, in particular, 16 suggests new ways in which to broaden our understanding of labour market intermediaries 17 and their impact on worker agency. 19 Introduction 20Since the 1970s labour market deregulation and flexible employment practices have led to a 21 "frenzy of academic and populist speculation about the future of work" (Wills 2009, 442). 22Recently described by the Labour Party leader as "nasty, brutish and short-term" (Wintour & 23 Topping 2012) the contemporary UK labour market, and indeed that of many other countries, 24 2 is fundamentally characterised by the increasingly individualised nature of work and the 25 growing 'contractualization' of employment (Standing, cited in Allen & Henry 1997, 180). 26For workers at the lower-end of the labour market this means increased risk and insecurity 27(Allen & Henry 1997) whereas, for the "desirably qualified" it can mean enhanced career 28 development (Wills 2009, 443). Nonetheless, for employees of all types their future success 29 and security increasingly depends on their ability to navigate ever more complex and volatile 30 labour markets (Benner 2002). As such, employers and employees across an assortment of 31 sectors and skill sets are using labour market intermediaries (LMIs) to help them do just that. 40Labour market intermediaries comprise a broad range of organisations that help match people 41 looking for work with employers. The existence of these organisations is not a new 42 phenomenon; public sector employment services, union hiring halls, and temporary 43 placement agencies for example, have been around for a long time (Benner et al. 2007 order to "effectuate a fair regime of regulation for these formidable players in the labour 66 relations arena" (Freedland 2003; Freeman & Gonos 2005, 295). 67The experiences of workers at all levels of the labour market can depend on the 68 organisational structure and remit of the intermediaries they interact with. Benner (2002) 69 identifies three broad types of LMI; private sector, member...

Out of the Frying Pan Into the Fire?

“…Although Roma migrants/asylum seekers' agency is constrained by the labour market structure at their destination countries, and the characteristics of labour demand there, they still have room to rework their position. Even if their migration, in line with research findings on other CEE migrant workers, leads them to high level of clustering in the low and unskilled segments of the 'informalised' formal labour market (Scott, 2017), which is characterised by workers' flexibility, poor wages, intensive working hours, job insecurity associated with dependence on staffing agencies (Enright, 2013), and which in many cases is followed by limited progression thereafter (Pereira, 2014), Roma migrant workers from North Hungary still consider their new position better than it was in their home society. Viewing matters through the eyes of transnationally mobile workers, social mobility has a more complex meaning for them than purely achieving income or occupational advancement.…”

Variation in worker responses to subcontracted employment: A qualitative case study

“…Over time, the temporary staffing industry has grown substantially and the largest staffing agencies now operate at the international level with offices located across the globe (Coe et al, 2007). These agencies play a prominent role in shaping labor flexibilization (Benner, 2003; Enright, 2013). Recent studies show that short-term/part-time employment markets are growing extensively even in Western European economies with strong traditions of labor market regulation (Pulignano and Arrowsmith, 2013; Saloniemi et al, 2004; Schmid, 2010) – especially in the aftermath of the global financial crisis in 2008 (Burgess et al, 2013).…”

“…In the past few decades, the structure of employment has changed dramatically, leading to a more flexible form of work organization (Elcioglu, 2010; Enright, 2013; Kalleberg, 2000; Segal and Sullivan, 1997; Smith, 1997). The scope of the change is wide, establishing nonstandard employment relationships in a variety of sectors around the world (Feenstra, 1998; Goode and Maskovsky, 2000; Kalleberg, 2009a, 2009b; Peck and Tickell, 1994, 2002).…”

Day Labor Agencies, “Backdoor” Hires, and the Spread of Unfree Labor

“…The increasingly mediated or triangulated character of employment is one of the most significant transformations in the world of work. Driving this trend has been the proliferation of labor‐market intermediaries, who broker the meeting of supply and demand (Benner et al ; Biao ; Enright ; Finlay and Coverdill ; Hatton ; Osterman ). This article focuses on a distinct kind of intermediary: day labor staffing agencies.…”

“…On the one hand, and as intimated above, backdoor hiring challenges and complicates the binary division of and in the literature between formal and informal day labor markets, revealing their intertwined and overlapping nature (Mukhija and Loukaitou‐Sideris ; Venkatesh ). On the other hand, and as explored below, the struggles elicited by backdoor hiring reveal the shades of unfreedom within this notoriously “flesh‐peddling” trade (Parker ), contributing to growing concerns within anthropology and related disciplines about emergent forms of unfree labor and, more specifically, the constraining effects of temporary staffing on workers’ mobility and agency (Calvão ; Enright ; Fudge and Strauss ; McTague and Wright ; Strauss ). Fudge and Strauss (, 3), for instance, have suggested that temporary agency work “challenges the normative and ideological model of ‘free’ wage labour (and can thus, conversely, be understood as unfree labour).” They cite an array of contractually imposed restrictions on the freedom of temporary agency workers: temporary agency workers, for instance, have little say in where they are placed, and they are routinely barred from accepting a more permanent position with the placement firm.…”