Why Employers Use Flexible Staffing Arrangements: Evidence from an Establishment Survey
基于对私营机构的全国代表性调查，研究雇主使用临时工、兼职工等灵活用工安排的原因，发现主要为了应对工作量波动和员工缺勤，同时节省福利成本，且多数雇主预计未来使用会增加。
This paper examines which employers use flexible staffing arrangements, why they use these arrangements, and their implications for workers and public policy, drawing on a nationally representative survey of private sector establishments.Use of flexible staffing arrangements-including temporary help agency, short-term, on-call, regular part-time, and contract workers-is widespread and two-thirds of employers believe this use will increase in the near future.Traditional reasons concerning the need to accommodate fluctuations in workload or absences in staff are the most commonly cited reasons for using all types of flexible staffing arrangements.Many employers also use agency temporaries and part-time workers to screen candidates for regular positions.Finally, savings on benefits costs is an important factor determining employers' use of flexible staffing arrangements.Workers in flexible staffing arrangements typically are not covered by regulations governing benefits, and they typically do not receive key benefits, like pension benefits and health insurance, when these benefits are offered to regular full-time workers. Why Employers Use Flexible Staffing Arrangements: Evidence from an Establishment SurveyEmployers' use of temporary, on-call, part-time, and contract employment is widespread and available evidence suggests the fraction of employment in certain flexible staffing arrangements is growing (Houseman and Polivka, 1998).Many regard this development as troubling, arguing that companies use these arrangements to increase workforce flexibility, which translates into less job security for workers, or to circumvent employment and labor laws, which often do not cover workers in flexible arrangements.Concern over the latter issue led a recent Department of Labor Task Force to recommend changes to these laws (U.S.Department of Labor, 1999).Others contend that employers' use of flexible staffing arrangements has little adverse consequences for workers and may even benefit them.For instance, companies may use flexible staffing arrangements simply to access workers with special skills, to accommodate workers' desires for short hours or temporary work, or to screen workers for regular positions.In the last case, if such arrangements facilitate good job matches, both workers and firms stand to benefit.Under the presumption that temporary help agencies can help workers find stable employment, some states refer unemployment insurance and welfare recipients to these agencies (Jobs for the Future, 1997; Bugarin, 1998).The debate over why employers use flexible staffing arrangements and their implications for workers is hampered by lack of evidence.To help bridge this information gap, the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research sponsored a nationwide telephone survey of 550 employers on their use of five flexible staffing arrangements: temporary agency workers, short-term hires, See, for example, Mangum, Mayall, and Nelson (1985); Abraham (1988, 1990); Bureau of National Affairs (1994); Axel (1995); Christensen (1995); and Kahn (1996).A more detailed discussion of these studies is provided in Houseman (1997).4Another nationwide employer survey, reported in Kalleberg, Reynolds, and Marsden (1999), was conducted about the same time as the Upjohn survey.However, the categorization of staffing arrangements used in that survey is quite different from that used in the Upjohn survey and earlier surveys, making comparisons of findings with that survey difficult.