The internal labour market and the employment of temporary help workers in Spain

Purpose – To ascertain whether any relationship exists between the main processes of human resource management involved in the internal labour market (training and internal recruitment) and the use of temporary help workers (THW) in Spain. Design/methodology/approach – Take into account the perspective complementary between internal and external employment systems, a questionnaire was sending by mail to a selected sample of companies to get information. Findings – The results confirm that a relationship does exist between the use of THW and training and internal recruitment. Also reveal the effects of the size upon these processes and the use of THW. Research limitations/implications – The main drawbacks are that of not using a wider sample. The findings will not be fully extrapolable to other countries. Future works could be directed towards testing a model of the relationship between the use of THW and a greater number of parameters, and a wider sample of miscellaneous countries. Practical implications – The training effort (TE) per employee and internal recruitment may be positively influenced by the employment of THW, which may be a source of motivation and increased productivity on the part of the regular staff. Originality/value – This paper shows that the use of THW could favour the appearance and development of an internal labour market, supporting the perspective that internal and external employment systems are complements.