Motives for accepting temporary employment: a typology

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to offer a typology of temporary workers, based on their motives for accepting their work arrangement, which includes voluntary, involuntary and stepping‐stone motives, and relate this typology to various individual and work‐related variables.

Design/methodology/approach

Latent class analysis of 645 European workers was used to construct a typology of temporary workers. Variation of individual and work‐related variables between types of temporary workers was analyzed using ANOVA.

Findings

The analyses suggest that there are three types of workers: involuntary temporary workers highlight the involuntary motive and the stepping‐stone motive; the stepping‐stone type stresses the stepping‐stone motive only, and the non‐involuntary group disagrees with all three motives. Moreover, the groups differed significantly on important work‐related variables such as occupational position, tenure, employability, and work‐involvement. However, differences in individual variables were limited.

Research limitations/implications

The research puts forward a more complex typology of temporary workers than is usually suggested. Moreover, the study shows a non‐involuntary group for which temporary employment can become a trap, and hence these workers should be targeted by future policy and interventions.

Originality/value

The research offers a typology of temporary workers, which is founded on motivation theory, and existing research on motives for accepting temporary employment.

Citation

de Jong, J., De Cuyper, N., De Witte, H., Silla, I. and Bernhard‐Oettel, C. (2009), "Motives for accepting temporary employment: a typology", International Journal of Manpower, Vol. 30 No. 3, pp. 237-252. https://doi.org/10.1108/01437720910956745