The Strategic Use of Temporary Agency Work – Functional Change of a Non-standard Form of Employment

Using data from the German case, the paper examines a new form of client firms’ utilization of temporary agency work that is distinctly different from traditional forms responding to production problems. Client firms, particularly from manufacturing, increasingly use temporary agency workers as a quasi-permanent component of their workforce. Management’s primary aim is to establish a “security net” for the short-term-profits by bypassing German statutory dismissal protection. However, since client firms’ regular employees and the temporary agency workers tend to perform the same tasks, a secondary effect of the strategic use of temporary agency work can be observed: the disciplinary effects associated with precarious work are tangibly amplified and expanded.