Skip Navigation


Journal of Economic Geography Advance Access originally published online on July 17, 2008
Journal of Economic Geography 2009 9(1):55-84; doi:10.1093/jeg/lbn029
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
9/1/55    most recent
lbn029v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Coe, N. M.
Right arrow Articles by Ward, K.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Related Collections
Right arrow F23 - Multinational Firms; International Business
Right arrow L22 - Firm Organization and Market Structure
Right arrow L84 - Personal, Professional, and Business Services
Right arrow M51 - Firm Employment Decisions; Promotions
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?


© The Author (2008). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Agents of casualization? The temporary staffing industry and labour market restructuring in Australia

Neil M. Coe*, Jennifer Johns** and Kevin Ward*

*Geography, School of Environment and Development, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK.
**Department of Geography, University of Liverpool, Roxby Building, Liverpool, L69 7ZT, UK.

email <neil.coe{at}manchester.ac.uk>

JEL classifications: F23, L2, L8, M51

This article presents a study of the Australian temporary staffing industry. It explores how temporary staffing markets are manufactured through the interactions between industrial relations and regulatory systems, on the one hand, and the structures and strategies of domestic and transnational temporary staffing agencies on the other. The article draws on secondary datasets and semi-structured interviews with government departments, labour unions, staffing agencies and their trade bodies to analyse the size, structure and characteristics of the Australian temporary staffing market. It argues that the Australian market differs in important ways from those other ‘neoliberal’ labour market regimes—such as those in Canada, UK and USA—with which it is often compared. The article argues for an approach that seeks to explore the (often gradual) mutual transformation of temporary staffing organizations and the institutional and regulatory systems in which they are embedded, rather than privileging one at the expense of the other.

Keywords: temporary staffing, Australia, labour markets, industrial relations, internationalization
Date submitted: 17 August 2007     Date accepted: 19 June 2008


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.