The Working Conditions and Health of Non-Permanent Employees: Are There Differences between Private and Public Labour Markets?

Abstract

Increasing levels of non-permanent employment have raised concern about quality of working life in the public sector. This Finnish study examines whether the public sector can be characterized as a ‘model employer’ with regard to the working conditions and well-being of fixed-term employees. Compared to the private sector, the difference in the physical load between non-permanent and permanent employees is significantly smaller in the public sector. Comparison of psychosocial strain shows a difference in favour of non-permanent employees, particularly among women working in the public sector. The association between type of employment contract and health is similar in both sectors. The equality between permanent and nonpermanent employees gives reason to benchmark the public sector as a model, even if the present findings may be due partly to sectorspecific occupational structures.

Organizational change and employee mental health: A prospective multilevel study of the associations between organizational changes and clinically relevant mental distress

“…Previous studies have indicated that temporary employment is linked to higher psychological morbidity (77)(78)(79), and one may surmise that temporary employees may experience certain types of change as more threatening than permanent employees. Furthermore, employees working in temporary positions in private companies have been reported to experience a higher physical workload than their publicly employed counterparts (80). Hence, effects in the current study could be underestimated due to the large proportion of respondents with a presumably relatively secure work situation.…”

Explaining variations in absence rates: temporary and agency workers in the food manufacturing sector

“…Although Saloniemi et al . (2004) and Virtanen et al . (2006) find that short‐term workers have better psychosocial work environments than permanent workers, Ferrie et al .…”

“…The nature of temporary work is also found to have effects on psychological well-being both at and away from the workplace. Although Saloniemi et al (2004) and Virtanen et al (2006) find that short-term workers have better psychosocial work environments than permanent workers, Ferrie et al (1995) find that short-term workers have poorer mental health, perhaps linked to their fear of job loss (Cappelli, 1999). Furthermore, Kivimäki et al (2003) note a higher mortality rate as a result of tobacco or alcohol misuse among temporary workers.…”

Self-Rated Health of the Temporary Employees in a Nordic Welfare State

“…There is also a study among the personnel of a Finnish hospital district showing that temporary employees experience less exhaustion than do permanent employees (25). Moreover, a study based on a random sample of Finland's working aged population found in a cross-sectional setting and with the total core-periphery range of non-permanent employment that there is a health gradient, but this is located between temporary and the more atypical employment contracts, such as on-call or agency work, rather than between permanent and temporary employees (15), independently of the sector (public or private) of the labor market (26). Indications of a similar difference between more and less atypical employment have also been reported in a Swedish study (27) that differentiated five types of non-permanent employment according to the position on the core-periphery axis (28) and followed up a population cohort for 12 years.…”