Conditions of work and employment series no

 

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Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 61 
3.
Prevalence of nonstandard workers around the world 
There are three key issues that warrant attention when we consider the prevalence of 
nonstandard work arrangements around the world. The first is that the proliferation of 
terms used to describe nonstandard work has made it difficult to get comparable data 
from different countries. For instance, in the United States the Bureau of Labor Statistics 
has issued periodic reports on the numbers of individuals who are independent 
contractors, on-call workers, temporary help agency workers, workers provided by 
contract firms, and part-time workers. The data from the Australian government provides 
information on casual work, which though roughly equivalent to temporary work in the 
United States, is slightly different in its definition. The OECD in its glossary of statistical 
terms distinguishes between employees on stable contract and others (1998) but does not 
provide a more fine grained definition of work contracts. This difference in definitions of 
types of employment contracts, and the consequent difficulty of gaining data that is 
comparable across nations, may result in policy makers not having the information they 
need on which to base sound policy. The scattered nature of the data could prevent these 
policy makers from fully understanding the issues that merit their attention, or possibly 
need further investigation. 
The second issue is that while the use of nonstandard workers has remained 
unchanged in some countries and has risen in others, the sheer numbers of individuals 
around the world who work in these nonstandard work arrangements warrants the 
attention of researchers and policy makers. Data from China show that between 2008 and 
2010 the number of urban workers who held temporary jobs more than doubled to a total 
of over 60 million workers, or one-fifth of the work force (Liu, forthcoming). The 
Bureau of Labor Statistics in the US in 2005 reported that over 11 per cent of workers in 
the US workforce consisted of nonstandard workers including independent contractors, 
on-call workers, temporary help agency workers and workers provided by contract firms. 
In India, contract workers formed approximately 20 per cent of the workforce in the 
manufacturing industry in 2001, as compared to 10 per cent of the workforce in 1991 
(Bhandari & Hesmati, 2006). In the OECD countries, the share of temporary 
employment as a percentage of total employment has remained between 11 and 12 
percent since 2000 with some countries like Poland reporting almost 27 per cent of the 
workforce in temporary employment, while others like the United Kingdom reporting 
approximately 6 per cent. (OECD Stat Extracts, 2015). The statistics for emerging 
economies like the Philippines and Vietnam also suggest a significant proportion of the 
workers in the non-agricultural sector are in informal jobs (42.2 per cent and 68.2 per 
cent respectively). These informal jobs are jobs that do not provide workers basic social 
or legal protections or employment benefits (ILO, 2012). While not all informal jobs are 
nonstandard, many temporary jobs fall within this category. These statistics indicate that 
there are many individuals and organizations around the world who experience 
nonstandard work arrangements. We need to understand their experiences and 
challenges. 
The third issue is that much of the research on nonstandard work arrangements has 
been undertaken in North America, Europe and Australia. As a result, our understanding 
of these work arrangements in these national contexts is far better developed than that of 
other countries. The question then remains of whether we expect nonstandard workers’ 
experiences, and the managerial challenges associated with them, to vary greatly in other 
countries. The research done to date suggests that the two most relevant factors that 
might help to explain the experience of individuals and organizations in nonstandard 
work across countries would be (i) the level of choice that individuals have in engaging 
in this work practices, and (ii) how and where the organizations deploy nonstandard 
workers. Specifically, we expect that when nonstandard work arrangements are adopted 

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Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 61 
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to provide individuals greater flexibility in dealing with non-work issues such as taking 
care of their families then we could expect more positive responses from workers to this 
work arrangement. However, when the work arrangement is not freely chosen, but rather 
is forced on to workers, then it is less likely to be valued by workers (Ellingson, Gruys & 
Sackett, 1998). Unfortunately, we do not have good data on the extent to which 
nonstandard work arrangements are voluntary in countries around the world. It is highly 
likely that the large numbers of individuals in informal jobs around the world, especially 
those that involve jobs that offer little legal and social protection are not likely to be in 
jobs of their choice (ILO, 2012). 
Similarly, if the manner in which organizations deploy nonstandard workers provide 
no threat to standard workers then the use of this work arrangement is not likely to be 
detrimental to the organization. For example, if firms use nonstandard workers only in 
jobs that are peripheral to the core competencies of the organization and in small 
numbers then standard workers are unlikely to interpret the presence of nonstandard 
workers as a sign of the organization’s decreasing investment in its’ people (George, 
2003). However, if the key form of employment growth in the organization is via 
nonstandard work arrangements then organizations in any country would have to deal 
with issues of managing employee commitment, retention of valued workers and 
knowledge, and being able to control and coordinate the efforts of workers throughout 
the organization. We discuss these managerial challenges below.