IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp18959.html

Are Temporary Work Agency Jobs Stepping Stones? Exploiting Variation in the Timing of Bankruptcy

Author

Listed:
  • Diris, Ron

    (Leiden University)

  • Meekes, Jordy

    (Leiden University)

  • van Vliet, Olaf

    (Leiden University)

Abstract

This study analyses whether temporary work agency (TWA) employment is a stepping stone to better labour market outcomes for displaced workers. Using monthly Dutch administrative data for the period 2010-2022, we focus on a sample of incumbent employees who are displaced because of a firm bankruptcy, and analyse the causal effect of the first job after displacement being a TWA job vs. another job. The main contribution of this study is that we exploit variation in firm bankruptcy dates in a novel instrumental variable approach to deal with the endogeneity of TWA employment. We find that TWA causes negative effects on employment and working hours, which dissipate around 30 months after firm bankruptcy. Effects on hourly wages are negative (20\%) and consistent up until seven years after firm bankruptcy. TWA employment also reduces the probability of having a permanent contract by around 20 percentage points in the long run.

Suggested Citation

  • Diris, Ron & Meekes, Jordy & van Vliet, Olaf, 2026. "Are Temporary Work Agency Jobs Stepping Stones? Exploiting Variation in the Timing of Bankruptcy," IZA Discussion Papers 18959, IZA Network @ LISER.
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18959
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp18959.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18959. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Mark Fallak (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaalu.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.