Temporary Agency Work and Globalisation: Beyond Flexibility and Inequality

Despite its geographic and industry expansion as part of the ongoing globalisation of service activity, temporary agency work (TAW) is relatively understudied.

TAW is characterised by a distinct triangular structure where workers are typically hired by staffing or employment agencies while being ‘dispatched’ to firms that use them as a type of temporary or non-regular labour. This agency-mediated labour dispatching, as a newly institutionalised industry, has registered rapid growth rates ove...