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Temporary Jobs: Who gets them, what are they worth, and do they lead anywhere?

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Author Info
Alison L. Booth () (Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex, UK)
Marco Francesconi () (Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex, UK)
Jeff Frank () (Royal Holloway College, University of London)

Additional information is available for the following registered author(s):

Abstract

In Britain about 7% of male employees and 10% of female employees are in temporary jobs. In contrast to much of continental Europe, this proportion has been relatively stable over the 1990's. Using data from the British Household Panel Survey, we find that, on average, temporary workers report lower levels of job satisfaction, receive less work-related training, and are less well-paid than their counterparts in permanent employment. We find some evidence that temporary jobs are a stepping stone to permanent work, although this transition takes between 18 months and three and a half years depending on contract type (seasonal or fixed term) and gender. Moreover, the wage growth penalty associated with experience of seasonal jobs is quite high, and it is likely that workers experiencing such jobs early in their working lives will never catch up. But experience of fixed-term contracts may lead to high wage growth if the workers move to permanent full-time jobs. This is because workers (especially women) who had such contracts enjoy high returns to "experience capital" once they acquire a permanent job.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Institute for Labour Research in its series ILR working papers with number 054.

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Length: 53
Date of creation: Apr 2000
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:esl:ilrdps:054

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Postal: Institute for Labour Research University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park Colchester, Essex CO4 3SQ UK
Phone: 44-1206-872957
Fax: 44-1206-872724
Web page: http://www.essex.ac.uk/ilr

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Postal: Institute for Labour Research University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park Colchester, Essex CO4 3SQ UK
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Web: http://www.essex.ac.uk/ilr/discuss/index.htm

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Related research
Keywords: temporary jobs; fixed term contracts; individual unobserved heterogeneity; job-specific effects;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
J30 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - General
J63 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies - - - Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Alison L. Booth & Marco Francesconi & Carlos Garcia-Serrano, 1999. "Job tenure and job mobility in Britain," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, ILR Review, ILR School, Cornell University, vol. 53(1), pages 43-70, October.
  2. Meyer, Bruce D, 1990. "Unemployment Insurance and Unemployment Spells," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(4), pages 757-82, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Susan N. Houseman & Anne E. Polivka, 1999. "The Implications of Flexible Staffing Arrangements for Job Stability," Staff Working Papers 99-56, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Dickens, Richard & Gregg, Paul & Wadsworth, Jonathan, 2000. "New Labour and the Labour Market," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 16(1), pages 95-113, Spring.
  5. Bentolila, Samuel & Bertola, Giuseppe, 1990. "Firing Costs and Labour Demand: How Bad Is Eurosclerosis?," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 57(3), pages 381-402, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Mark B. Stewart, 2002. "The Inter-related Dynamics of Unemployment and Low Pay," 10th International Conference on Panel Data, Berlin, July 5-6, 2002 B2-4, International Conferences on Panel Data. [Downloadable!]
  7. Lazear, Edward P & Rosen, Sherwin, 1990. "Male-Female Wage Differentials in Job Ladders," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 8(1), pages S106-23, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  8. Bentolila, S. & Saint-Paul, G., 1992. "A Model of Labour Demand with Linear Adjustment Costs," DELTA Working Papers 92-05, DELTA (Ecole normale supérieure).
    Other versions:
  9. Abraham, Katharine G & Taylor, Susan K, 1996. "Firms' Use of Outside Contractors: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 14(3), pages 394-424, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Hausman, Jerry A. & Taylor, William E., 1981. "Panel data and unobservable individual effects," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 155-155, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Henry S. Farber, 1999. "Alternative and Part-Time Employment Arrangements as a Response to Job Loss," NBER Working Papers 7002, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Hausman, Jerry A & Taylor, William E, 1981. "Panel Data and Unobservable Individual Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(6), pages 1377-98, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. David H. Autor, 2001. "Why Do Temporary Help Firms Provide Free General Skills Training?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 116(4), pages 1409-1448, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  14. Audrey Light & Kathleen McGarry, 1998. "Job Change Patterns And The Wages Of Young Men," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(2), pages 276-286, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. René Böheim & Mark P. Taylor, 2000. "The Search for Success: Do the Unemployed find Stable Employment?," ILR working papers 052, Institute for Labour Research. [Downloadable!]
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  16. Dolton, Peter J & van der Klaauw, Wilbert, 1995. "Leaving Teaching in the UK: A Duration Analysis," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 105(429), pages 431-44, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  17. Han, Aaron & Hausman, Jerry A, 1990. "Flexible Parametric Estimation of Duration and Competing Risk Models," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 5(1), pages 1-28, January-M. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  18. Cramer, J. S. & Ridder, G., 1991. "Pooling states in the multinomial logit model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2-3), pages 267-272, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  19. Farber, Henry S, 1999. "Alternative and Part-Time Employment Arrangements as a Response to Job Loss," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(4), pages S142-69, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  20. Wang, Ruqu & Weiss, Andrew, 1998. "Probation, layoffs, and wage-tenure profiles: A sorting explanation," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 359-383, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  21. Segal, Lewis M & Sullivan, Daniel G, 1997. "The Growth of Temporary Services Work," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 117-36, Spring. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  22. Eng Loh, 1994. "Employment probation as a sorting mechanism," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, ILR Review, ILR School, Cornell University, vol. 47(3), pages 471-486, April.
  23. Booth, Alison L & Frank, Jeff, 1996. "Seniority, Earnings and Unions," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 63(252), pages 673-86, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Alison L. Booth & Marco Francesconi & Jeff Frank, 2002. "Temporary Jobs: Stepping Stones or Dead Ends?," LABORatorio R. Revelli Working Papers Series 8, LABORatorio R. Revelli, Centre for Employment Studies. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Dimitri Paolini, 2001. "Bargaining and Temporary Employment," CREPP Working Papers 0107, Centre de Recherche en Economie Publique et de la Population (CREPP) (Research Center on Public and Population Economics) HEC-Management School, University of Liège. [Downloadable!]
  3. José Antonio Ariza Montes, 2008. "La estabilidad laboral en Andalucía: un análisis comparado entre hombres y mujeres mediante un modelo de regresión logística," Economic Working Papers at Centro de Estudios Andaluces E2008/06, Centro de Estudios Andaluces. [Downloadable!]
  4. repec:ese:iserwp: is not listed on IDEAS
  5. Alison L. Booth & Marco Francesconi, 2000. "Collectivism versus Individualism: Performance-related Pay and Union Coverage for Non-standard Workers in Britain," ILR working papers 061, Institute for Labour Research. [Downloadable!]
  6. Emanuela Ghignoni, 2006. "Human capital, unemployment, and probability of transition to permanent employment in the Italian regional labour markets," Working Papers 93, Sapienza University of Rome, Department of Public Economics. [Downloadable!]
  7. Wallette, Mårten, 2005. "Temporary Jobs and On-the-Job Training in Sweden - A Negative Nexus?," Working Papers 2005:13, Lund University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  8. Luca Nunziata & Stefano Staffolani, 2001. "On Short-Term Contracts Regulations," Economics Papers 2001-W7, Economics Group, Nuffield College, University of Oxford. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  9. Jan Sauermann, 2006. "Who invests in training if contracts are temporary? - Empirical evidence for Germany using selection correction," IWH Discussion Papers 14-06, Halle Institute for Economic Research. [Downloadable!]
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