This paper by Patrick Laplagne, Maurice Glover and Tim Fry was released on 22 February 2005. The paper seeks to measure the level and growth of labour hire employment, and to identify the reasons for that growth.

The paper is part of an ongoing program of research into labour markets at the Productivity Commission. This program is designed to examine developments in employment relations and the implications of these developments for the labour force and the Australian economy.

Download this publication

The Growth of Labour Hire Employment in Australia (PDF 185.0 KB)
The Growth of Labour Hire Employment in Australia - by chapters (ZIP 280.1 KB)

Contents

Preliminaries
Cover, Copyright, Contents, Preface, Acknowledgments, Glossary, Key points

1 Introduction

2   The level and growth of labour hire employment
2.1   The rate of labour hire employment, 1990 to 2002
2.2   What has been the growth of labour hire since 1990?

3   Sources of growth in labour hire employment
3.1   Introduction
3.2   Industrial relations context
3.3   Workplace employment strategies
3.4   Compositional factors
3.5   Summary

4   Conclusions and further research
4.1   What is the rate of labour hire employment; has it grown?
4.2   Why has the use of labour hire grown?
4.3   Concluding comments

A Major factors influencing survey estimates
A.1 Why are the W&V, FOES and ESS 99 estimates outliers?

B Analysis of labour hire growth using the AWIRS panel dataset

C Detailed results

References