Life and Employment of Temporary Workers: Evidence from RIETI survey

Based on the results of the Survey on Life and Job Search Activities of Temporary Workers, an Internet survey conducted by RIETI, this paper investigates the situation of temporary agency workers and summarizes the characteristics of these workers in comparison with other non-regular workers. The analysis shows that temporary agency workers in the manufacturing industry and contract workers tend to be the main financial contributors to their households. They are typically involuntary non-regular workers, meaning that they wish to work as a regular employee but, having been unable to find such a job, reconcile themselves to the current situation. By contrast, part-time workers are mostly homemakers. They work at their convenience and voluntarily choose non-regular work; as such, part-time workers have relatively high levels of life satisfaction and happiness. We also find that day laborers and dispatched temporary workers in the manufacturing industry were negatively affected by the economic crisis in 2008 and that their retention rates during the survey periods showed to be particularly low.