Employers' Use of Flexible Labour
Bernard Casey, Hilary Metcalf, Neil Millward

This new assessment of how and why employers are increasingly using 'flexible labour' describes the great variety of flexible working-time practices; explains why different types of employer use different sorts of 'flexibility'; and reveals that regular 'nine-to-five' jobs are a rarity.

Labour market analysts, employment specialists and policy-makers have all adopted the notion of 'labour market flexibility' in recent years. But different people want different types of 'flexibility'. Some employers want a multi-skilled, stable workforce; others prefer to sub-contract and hire temps. Workers, too, have preferences about the range of tasks they are called upon to do and the stability of their employment: some may prefer a multi-skilled job; some may like the regularity of a nine-to-five working day; others may prefer flexibility of hours to help them meet family and other responsibilities.

This study assesses the key trends in flexible working time practices using large-scale surveys and new, detailed case-studies of employers and employees. Amongst its findings, it identifies:

• to what extent flexible working practices are used in different types of workplace
• how the use of flexible labour has changed over time
• employers' reasons for using flexible labour
• the advantages and disadvantages employers see in different types of working practices and employment contracts
• the constraints which employers face in exercising greater flexibility in the use of labour, and likely future trends.

£16.95 paperback ISBN 0 853774 712 1
May 1997 160 pages 216x135mm
Report number 837