Earnings of temporary versus permanent employees

In the early 1990s, non-standard employment—temporary work, part-time work and self employ-ment—seemed to be escalating at a worrisome rate. This led to fears that employment conditions were deteriorating for a substantial percentage of workers (OECD 2002; Krahn 1995; Schellenberg 1996). From 1997 to 2003, temporary work grew much more rap-idly than permanent employment, despite a period of economic growth and favourable employment con-ditions. Indeed, GDP expanded during the entire period and the unemployment rate stayed below 8%. Temporary jobs are generally less well paid than per-manent ones, offer fewer employee benefits, are less likely to offer on-the-job training, and are precarious. Indeed, temporary work does not seem to be the first choice of many who do it. Recent data are sparse, but in 1994, two-thirds of temporary employees would