Temporary Workers/Temporary Agency Workers

Abstract

A substantial proportion of the total working population, ranging from 8% in the United States to 14% in Europe, is temporarily employed. Temporary employment refers to dependent employment of limited duration, either directly by the organization or by an agency. The use of temporary employment is mostly inspired by employers' motives related to cost reduction and flexibility. This has led to concerns about the impact of temporary employment for the worker. These concerns are rooted in the observation of poorer quality of temporary jobs compared with permanent jobs. Surprisingly, however, this poorer quality does not lead to an overall negative experience in terms of attitude, health and well‐being among the temporary workforce. Possibly, temporary workers see their job as a transitory stage to permanent employment.

Testing Demands and Resources as Determinants of Vitality among Different Employment Contract Groups. A Study in 30 European Countries

“…Interestingly, interpersonal and organizational job resources, such as supervisor support and positive social climate, also proved to be important contributors to work engagement in all the employment groups. Previous studies have often investigated the differences in task-level job resources (autonomy, participation in decision making, skill variety) in different employment groups [5]. The present study suggests that interpersonal and organizational job resources may also be important for work engagement among those with less stable contracts, even for temporary agency employees.…”

“…In addition, the greatest difference concerned job insecurity, which was highest among the temporary agency workers and lowest among those with permanent jobs. The results of many previous studies on the differences between the mean levels of work characteristics and well-being have been very mixed, sometimes suggesting better working conditions and well-being among those with more stable jobs and sometimes the opposite or no differences [1,[3][4][5][6][7]9,[15][16][17].…”

“…Possible reasons for this development are global competition, technological innovations, and the need to reduce labor cost, which in many organizations has meant an increased use of temporary workforce as a strategy for increasing flexibility and reducing costs and administrative complexity in order to move toward leaner, flatter organizations [3,4]. Organizations also hire temporary employees because of the need to balance peaks in demand and to replace permanent workers [5]. Over time, non-traditional employment has become more common and taken Most previous studies comparing different employment contract groups have focused on investigating how contract type is related to the quality of working conditions, well-being and health.…”

Who is Engaged at Work?

“…For instance, they may be considered peripheral workers, and employers may not be willing to invest in them by, for example providing training. They also may lack job control and social supportnd have monotonous jobs with less challenges [33][34][35] -all these job characteristics are known to influence work engagement. 36 More research is needed that both compares stable, permanent and increasingly untypical, precarious employment contracts, and their impacts on work engagement.…”