This paper describes the characteristics, jobs, employment patterns and employment outcomes of temporary workers, using data collected in Statistics New Zealand’s Survey of Working Life 2008.
Approximately one in 10 (9.4 percent) of employees were working in temporary jobs in the March 2008 quarter. 4.9 percent of employees were employed in casual jobs, 2.3 percent in fixed-term jobs, and 0.7 percent in jobs organised by a temporary employment agency. 2.7 percent of employees were working in seasonal jobs.
Temporary workers are a diverse group in terms of their demographic profile, skills, occupational status, earnings, employment conditions, and working time patterns. They include highly skilled and high paid employees in jobs with regular working patterns, as well as low skilled and low paid employees in jobs with irregular or non-standard working patterns.
A fairly small proportion of temporary employees said they were working in a temporary job because they were not able to find a suitable permanent job (13 percent). However a substantially larger group, 40 percent, indicated they would ideally prefer a permanent job. Most of the other 60 percent preferred to work in a temporary job.
The employment outcomes of temporary workers are influenced by the demographic make-up and skills of the workers who hold temporary jobs, and by the occupational profile and skill requirements of temporary jobs. This paper explores the influence of those compositional factors on the hourly wages and training participation rates of temporary employees. After adjusting for differences in characteristics, little evidence is found of a wage penalty for temporary employment relative to permanent employment. However, temporary work is associated with a lower probability of having undertaken workplace training in the last year. This is consistent with the hypothesis that employers provide less training to temporary employees, although it is also possible that the lower training rates of temporary employees can be explained by their lower employment continuity and other unmeasured factors.