Temped Out? Industry Rhetoric,Labor Regulation and Economic Restructuring in the Temporary Staffing Business

Abstract

The article develops a conceptualization of the role of the temporary staffing industry (TSI) in the wider economy, with particular reference to the 'home'of temping, the USA. It is suggested that the TSI should be understood as an active agent of labor-market deregulation and restructuring, contrary to the industry's selfrepresentation as a neutral intermediator in the job market and as a mere facilitator of more efficient and flexible employment systems. The article draws attention to the active steps that the industry has taken to establish (and defend) the legally ambiguous 'triangular' employment relationship upon which its very viability depends and, more generally, to make and grow its markets in segments as diverse as light assembly and construction work, health care, accountancy, teaching and a range of clerical occupations. The article argues also for a more finely grained analysis of the ways in which the temporary staffing business has itself transformed and restructured - as an inventive and energetic vendor of labor flexibility in what has been an expanding market since the industry's take-off in the 1970s. In fact, the American TSI has experienced a series of distinctive stages of growth over the past three decades, during which time it has searched but failed to find alternatives to the established business model of narrow margins, price competition and commodification. If there are limits to this industry's growth, then, these may well prove to be internal ones.