Temporary Agency Work and Well-Being—The Mediating Role of Job Insecurity

Organisations use non-standard employment as a means of flexibility and reduction of fixed costs. An increasingly growing group of employees are self-employed, have work contracts such as part-time and temporary contracts or are employed by a temporary agency, a development catalysed by the COVID pandemic. Whereas there is some evidence that temporary work might affect health via job insecurity (JI )there are hardly any studies focussing on the effects and mechanisms of temporary agency work (TAW). This study sheds light on TAW’s potential health impact and the role of JI in this respect using a mediation analysis. Based on the BIBB/BAuA-Employment Survey 2018 (N = 20.021, representative of the German working population), we analysed the direct effect of TAW on cognitive and psychosomatic aspects of well-being. In particular, we considered JI as mediator for this association. In line with the potentially detrimental effects of temporary employment on well-being, we found that TAW was related to unfavourable outcomes in terms of job satisfaction, general health status and musculoskeletal complaints. JI partially mediated all three underlying associations. Organisations need to be flexible and adaptable. However, by using temporary agency employment as a means to achieve this flexibility, managers and leaders should be aware that it is related to unfavourable well-being and hence hidden costs. In using this type of employment, both the temporary work agency and the user company should consider these health risks by providing health care, options for increasing the temporary agency workers (TA), workers employability, and equal treatment between permanent and TA workers at the actual workplace.

Temporary Employment, Permanent Stigma? Perceptions of Temporary Agency Workers Across Low- and High-Skilled Jobs

Research on temporary agency work emphasizes that temporary agency workers (TAWs), particularly those in low-skilled jobs associated with precariousness and low social prestige, are likely to be exposed to poor treatment, as well as stigmatization. On the contrary, stigmatization of TAWs in high-skilled jobs has not been treated in much detail in previous studies. Literature provides an incomplete picture of stigmatization within the broader field of temporary employment regarding the focus on low-skilled jobs. Hence, the present qualitative study is based on data from interviews of a heterogeneous sample of TAWs employed in low- and high-skilled jobs in Germany. By using and modifying Boyce and colleagues’ (2007) model of stigmatization, the study shows that stigmatizing treatment towards TAWs occurs across all skill levels, although the intensity and form of those experiences, as well as coping strategies, differ. Thereby, this study contributes to a more differentiated and skill level-specific understanding of how TAWs perceive and cope with stigmatization linked to their employment status. It also provides an important opportunity to advance Boyce and colleagues’ (2007) complex model of TAW stigmatization with empirical underpinnings.