Temporary Help Supply Service and the Temporary Labor Market

摘要

The Temporary Help Supply Service (THS) is a private sector industry that brings together workers and work assignments and provides both workers and employers with added labor market flexibility. The industry has increased eight-fold over the past 15 years, becoming a major labor market institution providing temporary work assignments to over two million persons annually. A model of the temporary labor market was developed, based on case studies in ten industry sectors, and tested with data from a national sample of employers. In this model, an employer's staff is viewed as consisting of a core and a periphery. Core employees have permanent full-time attachment to the firm, and incentives to discourage turnover. Employers reduce labor costs by using peripheral employees to meet temporary work needs. The employer incurs transaction costs in hiring peripheral workers. The THS service can reduce the transaction costs, as well as reduce search costs for workers.