Motives for accepting temporary employment: A typology

Temporary workers can experience different forms of motivation at the same time.

“De Jong, et al. [9] also confirmed that temporary workers could experience different forms of motivations at the same time.”

Different reasons to accept a temporary work arrangement exist.

“The study of temporary workers’ motivations, which is often connected with their voluntarism toward their employment situation, has persuasively demonstrated the existence of different reasons to accept this work arrangement [9,10].”

Different temporary agency worker motivation profiles relate differently with work involvement and employability perception.

“Concerning TAWs’ motivation, De Jong and colleagues [9] also showed that different profiles relate differently with work involvement and employability perception.”

The non-involuntary profile was the most distinct one: respondents in this cluster presented low levels of work involvement, although the difference was not significant, and higher levels of employability.

“The non-involuntary profile (i.e., workers rating all motives (involuntary, stepping-stone, and voluntary) as unimportant) was the most distinct one: respondents in this cluster presented low levels of work involvement (although the difference was not significant) and higher levels of employability.”

De Jong and colleagues' findings included an involuntary profile, a non-involuntary profile, and a stepping-stone profile.

“Their findings included an involuntary profile (high levels of involuntary and stepping-stone motives), a non-involuntary profile (all motives were rated as unimportant), and a stepping-stone profile (high scores of the stepping-stone and no reference to the voluntary or involuntary motives).”

De Jong and colleagues' analysis reached a three-profile solution combining voluntary or intrinsic motives, involuntary or extrinsic motives, and stepping-stone motives.

“With regard to temporary work, De Jong and colleagues’ [9] analysis reached a three-profile solution that combined (a) voluntary motives or intrinsic choices (i.e., the freedom offered by temporary work); (b) involuntary motives or extrinsic choices (i.e., the difficulty of finding a permanent job), and (c) stepping-stone motives”

TAWs are able to incorporate external regulation and accept a situation that is not what they really want, but they recognize the advantages of being employed and the opportunity to satisfy their aspirations to obtain a better/different job.

“TAWs are able to incorporate the external regulation and accept a situation that is not what they really want, but they recognize the advantages of being employed and the opportunity to satisfy their aspirations to obtain a better/different job [9].”

The high presence of identified motivation in all profiles-even Involuntary and Low present some degree-shows that either voluntarily or involuntarily, TAWs rely on temporary employment to obtain a permanent position within the client company.

“Moreover, the high presence of the identified motivation in all profiles—even the Involuntary Motivation and the Low Motivation profiles present in some degree of identified motivation—show that either voluntarily or involuntarily, TAWs rely on temporary employment to obtain a permanent position [9] within the client company.”

By comparing these results with De Jong et al., it was possible to overcome the small dimension of their measure and the imprecision of their typology proposal.

“By comparing these results with those obtained by De Jong and colleagues [9], it seems clear that it was possible to overcome the small dimension of their measure and the imprecision of their typology proposal”