Manufacturing Plants' Use of Temporary Workers: An Analysis Using Census Micro Data

Yukako Ono () and Daniel Sullivan

Working Papers from U.S. Census Bureau, Center for Economic Studies

Abstract: Using plant-level data from the Plant Capacity Utilization (PCU) Survey, we examine how manufacturing plants’ use of temporary workers is associated with the nature of their output fluctuations and other plant characteristics. We find that plants tend to hire temporary workers when their output can be expected to fall, a result consistent with the notion that firms use temporary workers to reduce costs associated with dismissing permanent employees. In addition, we find that plants whose future output levels are subject to greater uncertainty tend to use more temporary workers. We also examine the effects of wage and benefit levels for permanent workers, unionization rates, turnover rates, seasonal factors, and plant size and age on the use of temporary workers; based on our results, we discuss various views of why firms use temporary workers.

Keywords: temporary workers; output fluctuations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J2 J3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 41 pages
Date: 2008-12
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2008/CES-WP-08-40.pdf First version, 2008 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Manufacturing Plants' Use of Temporary Workers: An Analysis Using Census Microdata (2013)
Working Paper: Manufacturing plants’ use of temporary workers: an analysis using census micro data (2006)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cen:wpaper:08-40

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