Documents Houseman, Susan N. 9 results

"The authors use case study evidence from the hospital and auto parts manufacturing industries to investigate why employers used--and even increased their use of--temporary help agencies during a period of tight labor markets in the 1990s. In high-skill occupations, one apparent reason employers were willing to pay substantially more to agency help than to regular workers was to fill vacancies while they recruited workers for permanent positions. In low-skill occupations, temporary help agencies appear to have facilitated the use of more 'risky' workers by lowering their wages and benefits and the costs associated with turnover. The use of agency temporaries in both high- and low-skill occupations generated less pressure to raise regular workers' wages than companies probably would have felt had they screened and hired temporary workers themselves. The practice therefore may have contributed to both the stagnant wage growth and the low unemployment observed in the 1990s."

"Productivity growth in a sector or economy is the economic basis for improvements in workers' wages. Recent growth of domestic and foreign outsourcing in developed economies greatly complicates the measurement and interpretation of this key economic indicator and may result in inflated and misleading increases in productivity statistics. In the context of United States manufacturing, this article points to several pieces of evidence that suggest these effects of outsourcing and offshoring on productivity measures are significant. These factors may help explain why wage growth for most United States workers has been relatively low in spite of high measured productivity growth."

"This book reveals the considerable variation in the levels of growth in a broad set of nonstandard work arrangements while presenting a comprehensive view of how, as a result, the nature of the employment relationship is changing within and among countries. The international roster of economists, sociologists, and labor law experts who contributed draw on cross-country variations in economic conditions and institutional characteristics to explain why some arrangements have grown faster in some countries than in others and what this means for workers. By considering a broad array of nonstandard work arrangements in a number of economies, the authors provide a richer understanding than if the focus had been limited to a single country of one or a short-list of employment arrangements."