Understanding Temporary Help Agency Employment: Direct-hire Versus Agency Temp Employees

Over the last few years, organizations have adopted a labour management stance which puts more emphasis on non-standard forms of labour contracts as compared with the traditional full-time employment contract. Although temporary help agencies have become emblematic of these structural changes in employment relations, many questions about these intermediaries have been unsatisfactorily addressed by suitable empirical evidence. This book describes the rising incidence of agency employment, business incentives to address these intermediaries and the labour market intermediary function of temporary help agencies. In addition, it provides both theoretical and empirical analyses on dynamic labour market patterns of agency-intermediated work. Its purpose is to gauge whether agency employment generates any measurable benefits for the workers involved. The analysis should be especially useful for human resource professionals, labour economists and policy makers, since it helps us better understand the institutional role of these labour market intermediaries as well as its consequences for individual careers.