Temporary Help Work: Multiple Job-Holding and Compensating Differentials

Abstract

The authors use a compilation of administrative data to examine hourly wages, total hours of work, and quarterly earnings to investigate whether temporary help service (THS) jobs pay a compensating differential (or wage premium) relative to traditional jobs. They find lower quarterly earnings at THS jobs relative to non-THS jobs and a wage premium of $1 per hour for THS work that they suggest is largely explained by the much shorter duration of THS jobs.