The Wage of Temporary Agency Workers

Using French administrative data we estimate the wage gap distribution between in-house and temporary agency workers working in the same establishment and the same occupation. The average wage gap is about 3%, but the gap is negative in more than 25% of establishment × occupation cells. We develop and estimate a search and matching model which shows that the wage gap depends on the cost of job vacancies, on labor market frictions and on the labor management costs of temporary agencies for temp workers and user firms for in-house workers. Only a portion of the wage gap is efficient. A simple formula allows for estimating the taxes and subsidies that eliminate its inefficient component.

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