Temporary work and neoliberal government policy: evidence from British Columbia, Canada

Abstract

We examine the impact of government policy on the incidence of temporary work by analysing the case of British Columbia (BC), Canada. The analysis is based upon the Canadian Labour Force Survey 1997–2004; temporary work is defined as work that is not expected to last for more than 6 months and includes seasonal, fixed‐term, casual, and temporary help agency work. A case study of BC provides a valuable opportunity to assess the impacts of neoliberal government policy, designed to increase labour market flexibility, on the extent of temporary work because we are able to compare labour market trends in BC both before and after the reforms introduced in 2001 and to compare BC with other provinces in Canada that were not subject to such large changes in their policy environments. We find that the shift to neoliberal policies in BC led to significant increases in the likelihood of workers finding themselves in temporary employment. We also find that the likelihood of being a temporary worker in BC in the post‐policy change period increases relative to all other provinces over the same period. Taken together, these results indicate that government policy is a key determinant of the level of temporary work. As such, the level of temporary work should be seen as a policy‐sensitive variable, rather than as a phenomenon determined solely by the exogenous forces of globalization and technological change.

Keywords:

• temporary work
• flexibility
• labour markets
• neoliberalism
• government policy

JEL classifications:

• J21
• J48
• J81
• O51

Acknowledgements

This paper was written with the support of the Economic Security Project funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. We are grateful to Marjorie Griffin Cohen, David Fairey, Stephen McBride, Judy Fudge and two anonymous referees for comments on this paper.

Notes

1. ‘A New Era of Employment’, www.bcliberals.com. The Election Platform is no longer on the BC Liberal website. David Fairey downloaded the materials from the website while it was available and we thank him for generously making the document available to us.

2. In Spain, where temporary work has grown rapidly, there is also debate over policy impacts. Peréz Peréz (2003), for example, argues that ‘it seems crystal clear that the legal changes in Spain are relatively important for the market trends and changes’. However, Ferreiro and Serrano (2004) suggest that if this is indeed the case, it is an unexpected outcome. They argue (Ferreiro and Serrano 2004, 135) that ‘the evolution of fixed‐term employment contracts was totally unexpected for the Socialist government and the UGT [the General Union of Workers], who initially supported them, and even for the employers’ organizations’.

3. For analysis of temporary work and economic insecurity in Australia, Canada, Japan, the UK and the USA, see also the collection of papers in MacPhail and Bowles (2008).

4. The classification of welfare state regimes using gender relations as the defining characteristic has typically distinguished between (i) the male breadwinner, (ii) the dual income with women being assigned primary care responsibilities, and (iii) the dual income with socialized or state care regimes. In a male breadwinner regime, policies reinforce men being in the labour market and women being in the home providing unpaid care. There are two dual income regimes, with policies encouraging women to be in the labour market in both but one regime leaves the division of care as in the male breadwinner model (i.e. with women the primary care givers) while the other socializes care. The work of Esping‐Andersen (1990) in classifying welfare state regimes has been hugely influential and has prompted important contributions by feminists seeking to make comparative work on welfare states sensitive to the gender relations upon which they are based (see, e.g. Lewis 2001; Daly and Lewis 2000; O’Connor, Orloff, and Shaver 1999).

5. To put this in context, it should be remembered that, despite universal child care in Quebéc, Canada has nevertheless earned itself a reputation as ‘an international laggard’ in the provision of child care (Kershaw 2004, 928).

6. This corresponds to a drop in recipients from 249,313 to 156,951 over this period. Wallace, Klein, and Reitsma‐Street (2006) estimate that about half of the drop in recipients is due to the changes in government policy and the other half is due to increased economic activity.

7. For further information see the Guide to the Labour Force Survey available at http://www.statcan.ca/bsolc/english/bsolc?catno=71‐543‐G

8. This does not mean that all temporary jobs are necessarily ‘bad jobs’. However, given that they are often non‐voluntary, increases in the proportion of temporary employees is likely to be associated with declines in their welfare. In BC, 38.9% of male temporary workers and 51.1% of female temporary workers are in jobs paying less than Can$15 per hour (compared to 25.6% of men and 39.1% of women in permanent jobs). Authors’ calculations from the Labour Force Survey (Statistics Canada 2004). We also recognize that many permanent jobs are also ‘bad jobs’ in the sense of being associated with low wages, weekend or irregular hours, and lack of benefits.

9. The Labour Force Survey collects data on the presence of children in six age categories but, unfortunately, not how many.

10. There are 18 industry groups and 25 occupational groups.

11. For parsimony of presentation we do not report the coefficients for the industry and occupational variables which were included in the regression model. We also do not discuss the growth coefficients since these are for continuous variables and the interpretation of their coefficients in a logistic regression requires further manipulation. Full results are available from the authors upon request.

12. The estimate of the ‘Time Period: 2001–2004’ variable increases from 1.140 to 1.174 for men when full‐time students are included; the variable increases from 1.174 to 1.187 for women when full‐time students are included. Checking the sensitivity of the results to the definition of temporary work, we found that the ‘Time Period: 2001–2004’ variable went from 1.140 to 1.124 for men and from 1.174 to 1.026 for women. The decline in the odds ratio when permanent part‐time work is included, dramatically so in the case of women, provides strong evidence that the major effects of the neoliberal policy shift was on the incidence of temporary work only.

13. Ontario changed from a NDP government to a Conservative government in 1995. The Conservatives were replaced by the Liberals in October 2003. The change from NDP to Conservative resulted in a policy shifts which were similar in nature to those which occurred in BC in 2001 as a result of the change from NDP to Liberal provincial governments. Since data on temporary employment only started being collected in the Labour Force Survey in 1997 it is not possible to estimate the impact of the 1995 changes in Ontario.