Do Temporary Agency Workers Affect Workplace Performance?

Alex Bryson

No 392, National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) Discussion Papers from National Institute of Economic and Social Research

Abstract: Using nationally representative workplace data we find the use of temporary agency workers (TAW) is positively associated with financial performance in the British private sector and weakly associated with higher sales per employee. However TAW is not associated with value added per employee. Employees in workplaces with TAW receive higher wages than observationally equivalent employees in non-TAW workplaces. But the presence of TAW in the employee's occupation is associated with lower wages for employees in that occupation. Furthermore, conditioning on wages, the presence of TAW at the workplace is associated with lower job satisfaction and higher job anxiety among employees. These findings are consistent with TAW having an adverse effect on employees' experiences at work, perhaps due a more labour intensive regime, one which is only partly compensated for with higher wages.

Keywords: temporary agency workers; labour productivity; financial performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J50 L22 L23 L24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-04
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Related works:
Journal Article: Do temporary agency workers affect workplace performance? (2013)
Working Paper: Do temporary agency workers affect workplace performance? (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nsr:niesrd:392

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