Just a Temp. - book reviews

Monthly Labor Review, Sept, 1997 by Sharon R. Cohany

By Kevin D. Henson. Philadelphia, PA, Temple University Press, 1996, 202 pp., bibliography. $49.95, cloth; $16.95, paper.

The flexibility of the U.S. labor market has given rise to a number of employment options. Two of them--part-time jobs and jobs arranged through temporary help companies--are the subjects of recent books whose authors have supplemented existing survey data with original case studies.

Perhaps the largest category of non-standard work is part-time employment, which accounts for nearly one-fifth of the employed. While most part-timers work short hours by choice, the number of part-timers who would prefer full-time work has shown a long-term upward trend. In Half a Job, Chris Tilly seeks answers to some fundamental questions about this labor market phenomenon: why part-time employment has grown, what kinds of part-time jobs exist, and how businesses make decisions about and use part-time workers.

Well-written and accessible to the non-economist, the book begins with a discussion of the long-term increase in part-time employment, then covers the theoretical underpinnings of this study, the kinds of part-time jobs, and the strategies of firms with regard to part-time employment, and concludes with suggested policies toward part-time employment. In addition to examining data from large sample surveys, primarily the Current Population Survey, Tilly conducted 82 "semi-structured, face-to-face" interviews with employers, workers, and union officials in Boston and Pittsburgh in the late 1980s. The book is sprinkled with excerpts from the interviews, providing an interesting glimpse into the thought processes of company managers and workers. The research focused on two industries: retail trade (especially grocery stores) and insurance, both service-providing industries with expanding employment but with very different strategies with respect to part-time employment. Retail trade has long depended on part-timers, while insurance has a mostly full-time work force.

In explaining the long-term increase in the overall incidence of part-time employment, Tilly considers, and dismisses, factors such as demographic changes, widening compensation differentials between full- and part-time workers, and long-term growth in unemployment. Instead, he argues, the explanation lies partly in the evolution in industry composition, as industries that have traditionally used more part-timers, such as retail trade and services, account for a growing share of the work force. Even more important, there has been greater use of part-time workers by almost every industry, as a variety of employers have adjusted their personal strategies to boost their use of part-timers.

Tilly identifies two types of part-time jobs, secondary and retention. Secondary part-time jobs, the most prevalent type, are typically valued by managers for their relatively low cost and greater flexibility in scheduling, and are characterized by high turnover and low skill requirements, pay, benefits, and productivity. Retention part-time jobs, on the other hand, are created to keep or attract valued employees who prefer part-time hours. Such jobs tend to have low turnover and high levels of skill, compensation, and productivity. Companies create retention part-time jobs, posits Tilly, to help offset an oversupply of involuntary full-time positions that forces some people to work more hours than they prefer. Put another way, retention jobs are created one at a time, while secondary part-time jobs are created as whole classes. Tilly admits that the "half a job" designation applies only to some part-time jobs; retention jobs are considered "good jobs," and even some secondary jobs are the choice of their holders.

In identifying the reasons for large disparities in the use of part-time employment between retail trade and insurance, Tilly identifies several industry-specific factors, including the importance of staff continuity, the use of career ladders, and whether the target work force is less skilled and short-term or more skilled and longer term. Industry by itself is not destiny, however, the firms' own culture and traditions play an important role. Even within a given firm, decision makers hold differing opinions as to the efficacy of part-time help. For example, Tilly quotes supermarket managers who were resistant to their bosses' desire to hire more part-time workers, whom the managers viewed as less committed and productive. The local labor market also is a determinant; assisted by technology, some firms have adopted part-time staffing strategies in response to the preferences of available workers. Operating with few legal constraints, companies have many staffing options, and Tilly's skillful blending of qualitative and quantitative information helps us to understand the choices they make.

Unlike part-time work, whose share of employment has changed slowly, work intermediated by temporary help supply firms has increased six-fold since 1982. Just a Temp is a case study of the clerical side of the industry primarily from the perspective of the temporary workers.