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Temporary Employment and Strategic Staffing in the Manufacturing Sector
Author(s) -
VIDAL MATT,
TIGGES LEANN M.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
industrial relations: a journal of economy and society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.61
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1468-232X
pISSN - 0019-8676
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-232x.2008.00545.x
Subject(s) - flexibility (engineering) , staffing , business , key (lock) , work (physics) , core (optical fiber) , function (biology) , risk analysis (engineering) , industrial organization , operations management , temporary work , labour economics , computer science , economics , engineering , computer security , management , mechanical engineering , telecommunications , evolutionary biology , biology
While prior research has identified different ways of using temporary workers to achieve numerical flexibility, quantitative analysis of temporary employment has been limited to a few key empirical indicators of demand variability that may confound important differences. Our analysis provides evidence that many manufacturers use temporary workers to achieve what we call planned and systematic numerical flexibility rather than simply in a reactive manner to deal with unexpected problems. Although temporary work may provide many benefits for employers, a key function appears to be the provision of numerical flexibility not to buffer core workers but to externalize certain jobs.