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Temporary Work (temporary + work)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences60%
Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting40%

Selected Abstracts

Temporary Work in the Public Services: Implications for Equal Opportunities

GENDER, WORK & ORGANISATION, Issue 4 2003
Hazel M. Conley
This article examines the impact of the growing number of temporary employment contracts in the public sector on equal opportunity theory, policy and practice. Quantitative and qualitative data from two case study local authorities are utilized to examine the mechanisms by which temporary work becomes an equal opportunities issue. A strong association between part-time work and temporary employment status is demonstrated as an important aspect of the gendered nature of temporary work. Links between ethnicity and temporary work are less clear but are based upon the insecurity of targeted funding for teachers and the under-valuation of the skills of the workers concerned. The data indicate that temporary workers are largely excluded from equal opportunity policy and practice, bringing into question a concept of equality that can permit less favourable treatment for certain groups of workers. It is argued that public sector restructuring, particularly concerning decentralization and the quest for flexibility, has facilitated the differential treatment of employees, thereby fundamentally eroding the basis of equal opportunity policy and practice. [source]

Temporary Employment and Strategic Staffing in the Manufacturing Sector

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, Issue 1 2009
MATT VIDAL
While prior research has identified different ways of using temporary workers to achieve numerical flexibility, quantitative analysis of temporary employment has been limited to a few key empirical indicators of demand variability that may confound important differences. Our analysis provides evidence that many manufacturers use temporary workers to achieve what we call planned and systematic numerical flexibility rather than simply in a reactive manner to deal with unexpected problems. Although temporary work may provide many benefits for employers, a key function appears to be the provision of numerical flexibility not to buffer core workers but to externalize certain jobs. [source]

Contingent Chicago: Restructuring the Spaces of Temporary Labor

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL RESEARCH, Issue 3 2001
Jamie Peck
Hiring-halls, specializing in the placement of day-laborers in temporary jobs, have in recent years been proliferating along major transport arteries in Chicago's low-income neighborhoods. This article examines the phenomenon of low-wage temporary work in Chicago from the perspective of the principal institutional actors in these highly ,flexibilized' or ,contingent' labor markets , the ,temp' agencies. Particular emphasis is placed on the labor-market effects of temp-agency strategies, both in respect to patterns of labor segmentation and in terms of the spatial (re)constitution of urban job markets. It is suggested that temp agencies are actively engaged in both the exploitation and facilitation of contingent labor-market conditions. In this sense, they are assuming important new roles as privatized ,labor-market intermediaries', with apparently deleterious effects for job security and social segregation in the lower reaches of urban labor markets. Their strategies can also be related to the social and geographic restructuring of these job markets, because the growth and polarization of temp employment has been associated with a ,hardening', and indeed ,stretching', of extant ethnic, gender and spatial inequalities. Des bureaux d'embauche, spécialisés dans le placement de journaliers sur des postes temporaires, ont récemment proliféré le long des grands axes de transport dans les quartiers défavorisés de Chicago. Cet article étudie le phénomène du travail temporaire à faible revenu dans cette ville, et ce, du point de vue des principaux acteurs institutionnels sur ces marchés du travail hautement ,flexibilisés' ou ,aléatoires': les agences de travail temporaire. Il insiste sur les conséquences des stratégies de ces agences pour le marché de l'emploi, à la fois au niveau des schémas de segmentation du travail et en termes de (re)constitution spatiale des marchés du travail urbains. Aussi peut-on suggérer que ces agences sont activement impliquées dans l'exploitation et la facilitation des conditions aléatoires du marché du travail. En ce sens, elles jouent un rôle important et nouveau comme ,intermédiaires du marché du travail' privatisés, avec des effets apparemment néfastes pour la sécurité de l'emploi et la ségrégation sociale dans les circuits inférieurs des marchés urbains. Leurs stratégies peuvent aussi être liées à la restructuration sociale et géographique de ces marchés, la croissance et la polarisation de l'emploi temporaire ayant ètè associées à un ,durcissement', et assurément à une ,extension', des inégalités existantes au plan ethnique, spatial et des sexes. [source]

They don't want to be temporaries: similarities between temps and core workers

JOURNAL OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR, Issue 8 2007
Maria José Chambel
This study investigated the impact of employment status (temporary/regular) on the employee,organization relationship in samples from two firms employing both temps (n,=,234) and regular or core (n,=,204) workers. Temps and regular workers held similar beliefs regarding the nature of their employment relationship. However, among those temps for whom temporary work was their preferred status, the employment relationship was less socioemotional and more economic than was the case for other workers. When these temps preferred regular employment, their relationships were high socioemotional and low economic, comparable with that of core workers. A employee,organization relationship high on socioemotional terms was positively related to satisfaction with the organization, an attitude which in turn mediated the relationship between employment relationship and employees' performance and civic virtue behaviors (behaviors as assessed by their supervisors). Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]