Research Projects
The growth dynamics and geographies of the UK temporary staffing industry (2001 - )
Lead researcher: Kevin Ward.
Funding: British Academy and the University of Manchester.
Temporary staffing agencies play a considerable role in the production of what more broadly has been termed ‘contingent work’. To some researchers this labor contract reflects the leading edge of a new regime of precarious employment (Allen and Henry 1996; Bauman 2000; Beck 2000). Here employment relationships are individualized and greater work-time instability and systemic underemployment ensue, with significant implications for both labor markets and workers. At the centre of this new regime are temporary staffing agencies. These act as intermediaries (Mangum et al. 1985; Peck and Theodore 1998) and facilitate the creation of temporary employment. They shape the social distribution of work, affect the career-pattern of workers and increasingly are charged with delivering a range of human resource functions. Existing studies have focused on a number of trends. They have examined the patterns of temporary employment (Dale and Bamford 1988; Sly and Stillwell 1997; Tremlett and Collins 1999), the rights and benefits attached to temporary employment (General Accounting Office 2000; Income Data Services 2000), the experiences of workers placed through temporary staffing agencies (Garsten 1999; Rogers 2000) and the management issues around this group's use (Cooper et al 1995; Ward et al 2000). So far, however, there has been little research in the UK, or beyond, on the placed effects of the expansion of the temporary staffing industry. In particular, on how temporary staffing agencies influence the construction, regulation and segmentation of urban and suburban labor markets.
The growing presence in the labor market of temporary staffing agencies is, of course, not just of concern to academics. Contingent work is also an important political issue in Europe. Last summer European employee and employer unions agreed to participate in EU wide negotiations on employment managed through staffing services agencies. Following on from the re-regulation of part-time and fixed-term contracts, this type of contingent work is one of the last employment forms to be regulated at an EU level. On the other hand there is less of a consensus in the US over the need for re-regulation, despite decades of debate over the size and the form of contingent work (Barker and Christensen 1998; US General Accounting Office 2000; Polivaka and Nardone 1989). Yet in spite of future regulatory differences, there is more agreement in both the UK and the US over the growing importance of the staffing services industry in contemporary labor markets. So, for example, it is largely accepted that by the end of last year nearly 40% of the British workforce and more than half of the American workforce will be in one form of non-standard employment or another. Prefiguring last summer's flurry of EU activity, the UK government recently issued a consultation document on what it referred to as the Private Recruitment Industry. This document set out the current legal regulatory framework and the contemporary characteristics of the Industry, and outlined a series of proposed changes. Over the last six months the Industry's trade association, the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) has responded to these proposals. It has argued that they will reduce the flexibility of the UK labor market. The Trade Union Confederation (TUC) and single-sector unions such as the Communication Workers Union (CWU) on the other hand, have voiced their concerns over the growing influence of staffing service agencies. In particular they point to the lack of benefits and rights attached to workers placed through temporary staffing agencies and the apparent opaqueness of the ‘triangular’ relationship between the temporary worker, the staffing services agency and the client company.
The focus of the project is twofold: (i) to set the national context through mapping the UK staffing services industry. This will both be a quantitative exercise, drawing upon existing data sets, and a qualitative exercise, drawing upon interviews with key national figures and; (ii) to establish what this formal and informal regulatory structure means for the organization of British urban labor markets. The comparative focus will allow me to draw out similarities and contrasts between contingent labor markets in different areas of the UK. The study will provide a series of insights into the employment conditions and strategies that are behind the expansion of the UK staffing services industry.