Industrial restructuring, labour market segmentation and the temporary employment industry in Namibia

Abstract

The rapid growth of the temporary employment industry in Namibia is related to changes in the relationship between restructuring in the workplace (labour demand) and shifts in the composition of the labour market (labour supply). Instead of seeking a general explanation for the use of temporary employment, a more fruitful approach is to focus attention on the reasons why certain industries are more inclined to resort to casualisation or outsourcing. This calls for a study of the factors peculiar to a sector that encourage or facilitate the recourse to temporary employment. Given the complex distribution of temporary employment across economic sectors, however, there can be no simple or functional relationship between type of production process or market conditions and the use of agency temporaries. Despite the lack of a simple or direct correspondence between the type of firm and the use of temporary labour, case studies reveal some correlation between the nature of the production process and the type of employment ‘flexibility’ that is sought by employers. The latter is primarily a product of the degree of variance within a sector, especially the extent of discrepancy between labour supply and labour demand.

Keywords:

• Namibia
• labour market segmentation
• temporary employment
• flexible employment
• casual employment