Abstract

In comparison to other European countries, temporary agency work is rather wide-spread in the Netherlands. The German parliament has deregulated the legislation on temporary agency work in 2003, taking into account the Dutch experience. The aim of our paper is to investigate why there are differences with respect of the use of temporary agency work in both countries. Therefore, we first compare the regulation of temporary agency work in both countries and provide an overview on the structure, development and extent of agency work in Germany and the Netherlands. We show that contrary to the prevailing view the share of temporary agency workers in the Netherlands has decreased considerably since 2000. One reason is that the Dutch government has fundamentally regulated temporary agency work in 1998/1999. Despite these reforms, the Dutch system concedes more flexibility to temporary work agencies, thus reducing the cost of temporary agency workers. Therefore, in the Netherlands, more and different industries use temporary agency work than in Germany.