Fabio Berton () (Department of Public Policy and Public Choice, University of Eastern Piedmont) Francesco Devicienti () (Department of Economics and Public Finance "G. Prato", University of Torino) Lia Pacelli () (Department of Economics and Public Finance "G. Prato", University of Torino)
Additional information is available for the following
registered author(s):
Are temporary jobs a port of entry into permanent employment? In this paper we argue that the answer crucially depends on the type of temporary contracts being considered, as the different contracts observed in practice are typically characterized by varying combinations of training, tax-incentives and EPL provisions. We base our empirical evidence on a longitudinal sample of labour market entrants in Italy, a country where a large number of temporary contracts coexist with a relatively high employment protection for standard employees. We estimate dynamic multinomial logit models with fixed effects, to allow for non-random sorting of workers into the different types of contracts. We show that the transition to permanent employment is more likely for individuals holding any type of temporary contracts than for the unemployed, thus broadly confirming the existence of port-of-entry effects. Yet, not all temporary contracts are the same: training contracts are the best port of entry, while freelance contracts are the worst. We also show that temporary contracts are generally a port-of-entry into a permanent position within the same employer, but not across firms, implying that little general-purpose training is gained while on temporary jobs. Moreover, the time needed for an internal transformation from a temporary to a permanent position appears rather long, suggesting that firms are likely to use (a sequence of) temporary contracts as a cost-reduction strategy, rather than as a screening device for newly hired workers.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by University of Torino, Department of Economics and Public Finance "G. Prato" in its series Working Papers with number
6.
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.: