TY  - JOUR
AU  - Estevao,Marcello M.
AU  - Lach,Saul
TI  - The Evolution of the Demand for Temporary Help Supply Employment in the United States
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 7427
PY  - 1999
Y2  - December 1999
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7427
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7427.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Marcello Estevao
Deputy Chief, North American Division
International Monetary Fund
Washington, DC  20431
Tel: 202-623-6038;  MEstevao@imf.org
E-Mail: mestevao@imf.org

Saul Lach
Department of Economics
Hebrew University
Jerusalem, 91905
ISRAEL
Tel: 972-2-5883253
Fax: 972-2-5816071
E-Mail: saul.lach@huji.ac.il
AB  - The Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported an extraordinary increase in temporary help supply (THS) employment during the late 1980s and the 1990s.  However, little is known about the venues where these THS employees actually work.  Our estimates indicate that the proportion of THS employees in each major American industry, except the public sector, increased during 1977-97.  By 1997, close to 4 percent of the employees in manufacturing and services were THS workers.  In the service sector, the increase was accompanied by a large increase in direct hires.  In manufacturing, however, it was accompanied by a decline in direct hiring from its peak in 1989 even though output increased substantially in the 1990s.  Practically, all of the growth in THS employment is attributed to a change in the hiring behavior of firms, rather than to a disproportional increase in the size of more THS-intensive industries.
ER  -