Uncertainty of temporary employment: Positive aspects of job instability

Modern times are characterised by instability that affects labour markets too. Relationships formed between employees and employers are increasingly short-lived, not to say accidental, because of the transient character of fixed-term contracts. Consequently, both employees and employers are increasingly uncertain about their decisions. An uncertain situation, unlike a risky one, is an instance when one estimates the probability of occurrence of a scenario based on their subjective rather than objective criteria, which makes the probability practically non-verifiable (so-called L.J. Savage’s personal probability). The increasing incidence of fixed-term employment contracts has a major effect on the labour market structure - the growing number of employers who look for temporary workers uncertain about whether the right ones will be selected is accompanied by a growing number of people who regularly enter into short-term employment contracts, change employers, workplaces and jobs. Short periods of temporary jobs form a rich mosaic of experiences and create occupational careers that are so much different from a typical career founded on well-established relations stemming from long years of work for the same employer.  The question that needs to be answered is whether this behavioural flexibility of employers and employees which leads to a more frequent use of temporary employment contracts has any positive aspects and, should the answer be yes, who benefits from them – employers or employees.

The aim of the article is to analyse the impacts of the growing use of temporary work arrangements offered by employment agencies using the case of Łódź and to establish under what conditions temporary work is likely to produce positive effects.  The analysis is based on the results of a survey that a team from the Chair of Labour and Social Policy conducted in the first half of 2013. The survey’s tools were questionnaire interviews and questionnaire forms mailed to 3 employment agencies, 4 employers with temporary personnel (HR departments and front-line managers), 126 temporary workers and 390 students of graduate studies in economics (to explore their knowledge of and interest in taking temporary jobs). To investigate correlations between the results the chi-square test is used and if the data fail to meet its assumptions the Fisher’s exact test is applied (p of 0.05). The research results focus on temporary workers’ and employers’ attitudes to temporary employment in the context of competence building and career planning and ways of managing temporary employment issues, respectively.