Contingent Workers

Conceptual Overview

The rise of contingent workers is directly related to organizational initiatives seeking flexibility in a dynamic global economy. Business organizations have increasingly turned to contingent workers to enact competitive advantage through labor flexibility, increasing or decreasing labor based on market demands. While this trend continues to gain cultural and organizational currency across the globe, the extent to which contingent employment provides opportunities or displaces labor market risk to the individual worker remains contested by organizations, scholars, and workers alike.

The term contingent is often interchanged with “precarious.” In this sense, contingent or precarious employment stands in sharp contrast to the normative, 20th-century employment relationship of permanent, full-time work conducted at an employer's place of business. While the majority of workers worldwide have never experienced this “lifetime” employment historically enjoyed by white men in large corporations, it remains the standard to which labor contingency continues to be compared. Contingent workers' “alternative” or “nonstandard” status thus raises concerns regarding the ethical treatment, organizational support, employee development, and (in)equitable pay or benefits afforded outlier workers.

Contingent workers are not a homogenous group. In 1989, Polivka and Nardone designated four categories of contingent workers. Temporary staffing agencies including, for example, Manpower and Kelly Services, represent one of the fastest growing groupings of contingent workers. These workers are at the center of a tripartite employment relationship involving a staffing agency, client organization, and themselves; “temps,” then, are sent on assignment for a fixed period of time to client firms for a fee. While temporary [Page 270]staffing agencies originally placed female workers to assist clients with the typewriters that agencies provided (e.g., “Kelly Girls”), the internationalization of the industry evinces the use of contingent temps across a variety of occupations from administration to scientific research and development, and across a breadth of industries.

Independent or “freelance” contractors represent another grouping of contingent workers. Largely selfemployed individuals, freelance contractors sell their skills and talents to organizations on either a fixed term or project basis. While temps have historically been cast as “secretaries,” independent contractors represent the quintessential “New Economy” knowledge workers, largely working in information technology (IT) or managerial consultancy types of occupations.

Direct hires or “in-house” contingent workers are employed directly by business organizations to work, again, on a fixed term or project basis. While independent contractors remain self-employed and work on a contract basis, direct hires are employed by the immediate employer organization. Direct hires are often utilized by large organizations that prefer to manage variable staffing needs themselves, rather than with a temporary staffing agency.

Seasonal or part-time contingent workers represent a final grouping. These workers are hired for a designated “season,” often shaped by the tourist, agricultural, or consumer market's demands. Seasonal workers may be rehired by the employer organization season after season, thereby challenging their “contingent” status; at the same time, their nonstandard employment status clearly falls within the purview of contingent work.

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