When we talk about temporary contract, it leads to the flexible labour markets.

These developments have certain advantages and drawbacks to both business and the staff concerned.

Disadvantages of Flexible Labour Markets

1. Part time and Temporary staff may not get sufficient training from firms because they only have short term contracts. Therefore many low skilled workers will remain under skilled. This ties in with broader concerns about skills gap in the economy. Greater job insecurity and stress. Job security is often as important to workers as the level of wages. This could lead to lower morale and lower productivity. Rising inequality as non unionized part time workers get low pay.

2. 3.

Advantages of Flexible Labour Markets

1. 2. 3. Firms will be more efficient and competitive. With increased labour productivity there could be an increase in output and exports. There could be a lower rate of natural unemployment and lower inflation. Many workers will prefer flexible employment patterns because it suits their life style.

What is the advantages and disadvantages of parttime workers to the firm?

Benefits of employing part-time workers
Employing part-time workers has a range of potential business benefits, such as:
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being an efficient way to keep costs down in areas where you don't yet need full-time cover. In fact, it is not uncommon for part-time workers to do as much in
their shorter day or week than a full-time worker on the same staff. In this article Duport looks at how employing part-timers can help your business, plus the benefits of job-sharing, as well as how to stay within the law and treat your part-timers as favorably as full-time workers.

increasing recruitment and retention of staff by offering family-friendly working practices

being able to show potential clients and customers that you value having a diverse workforce and ethical employment practices.

expanding the pool of potential recruits - part-time work tends to attract parents with younger children and older people, who may not want to work full time but can bring a wealth of skills, experience and expertise.

increasing the ability of your business to respond to change and peaks of demands - for example, you can use more workers at peak times and extend your operating hours by using part-time workers in the evening or at weekends

helping to reduce the workloads of other workers, eg when you don't have enough work for a new full-time position but are regularly using overtime to meet demands - this can reduce your overtime costs and help prevent the negative effects of stress and fatigue. Benefits to you, the employer, can be
enormous. Flexibility to meet peaks in demand is increased and you have a wider range of skills, experience, views and ideas to call upon. If one person is off sick or on holiday there can be greater continuity.

What are the disadvantages of employing people part-time?

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On the downside, employers need to consider any extra induction, training and administration costs. The way you manage part-timers should not differ from the way you manage fulltimers and they must not be treated less favorably than full-time workers. Any treatment that disadvantages part-time workers could end in a complaint to an employment tribunal. There will be more staff to manage than if they were all full-time. Effective communication will become much more difficult, not just because there will be more staff in total but also because it may be impossible to hold meetings with all the staff at any one time.

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Motivation levels may be adversely affected because part-time staff may feel less involved and committed to the business than full-time worker. It will be much more difficult to establish a teamwork culture if all the staff never actually meet each other because of their different working hours.

Advantages for the workers with part time

What is a part-time worker?

A part-time worker is someone who works fewer hours than a full-time worker.. There is no specific number of hours that makes someone full or part-time, but a full-time worker will usually work 35 hours or more a week.

Part-time workers' rights

All workers have basic employment protection rights - regardless of whether they work full or part time. Part-time workers must be treated equally to comparable full-time workers who work for the same employer and do similar work under the same type of employment contract.

Pay for part-time workers

Compared with full-time workers, part-time workers should receive equal: Rates of pay - part-time workers must receive the same rate of pay as full-time workers carrying
out work of equal value. However, if you can show that part-time workers have a different level of performance to their full-time equivalents, you could possibly justify different rates of pay. You must use a fair and consistent appraisal system to measure this. Overtime pay - but only once they have worked more than the normal full-time hours of a comparable full-time worker, eg if a comparable full-time worker normally works 40 hours per week, a part-time worker working 20 hours per week would have to work another 20 hours before receiving overtime pay. Enhanced rates of pay - for working outside normal contractual hours, eg bonus pay, shift allowances, unsocial hours payments and weekend payments.

Ideal contract
Contact could be ideal for certain types of workers , for example students , parents with young children ,or more elderly people who do not wish to work a full week. Everyone has the chance to get a part time job to used up their free time to earn some money.

Greater job variety

They may be able to combine two jobs with different firms, giving greater variety to their working lives. Moreover, if the workers continue on doing the same job, their quality and skill may suffer because of boredom. Hence, the quality of product may suffer and the workers will lost their interest on their work and be demotivated.

Disadvantages for the workers wif part time

They will be earning less than full-time worker and will be paid at a lower rate. This is because they lack steady hours, with employers who can reduce hours--and subsequently pay--when business is slow. This may caused the workers cannot achieve the physical need in Maslow s theory when the rate is too low.

Unique employment status

Workers with part-time jobs face problems that are unique to their employment status. Most part-time workers don't earn benefits, such as health insurance or eligibility for an employer-sponsored retirement savings plan.

Earning less and paid lower rate Security of employment

The security of employment and other working conditions are often inferior to those of full time workers. This is now changing in some countries. All states of the European Union were legally to gives as many employment rights to part-time as to full-time workers.This also may not meet the Safety need in Maslow s theory when the job is not secured.

Core and Peripheral Workers Atkinson proposed a model of the flexible firm. In the flexible firm model, flexibility is defined as functional, numerical and financial flexibility. It is developed by Atkinson during the 1980s, the core periphery model concept

divides the workforce into core workers and peripheral workers.

Core workers are the more-or-less permanent workers of a company, usually possessing a high level of qualifications or firm-specific skills that cannot be easily replaced. Core workers are expected to display functional flexibility in return for security of employment. Functional flexibility is concerned with the ability of employees to handle different tasks and move between jobs, i.e. multi-skilling. This approach enables employers to match changing workloads, production methods and/or technology within the firm. Such workers from the core of the company's workforce, and comprises, usually are managers, designers, technical sales staff, quality control staff, technicians and craftsmen. Peripheral workers are those who are employed by a company on a fixedterm or occasional basis and are thus the first to be laid off when demand slackens. Peripheral workers are expected to provide the firm with numerical flexibility. Numerical flexibility refers to the power to adjust the number of workers or the number of hours worked, in response to changes in demand.

Financial flexibility refers to a firm's capability to change employment costs in response to supply and demand in the external labour market. This facilitates the objectives of functional and numerical flexibility. Furthermore, it involves a move away from standardized pay structures. It is directed towards more individualized systems dependent upon performance. Peripheral group one are employees have permanent contracts. However, they have few career opportunities and less job security. Peripheral groups two are employees of more numerically flexible. They are mainly parttimers, job sharers or employees on short-term contracts. These two peripheral groups are in their turn surrounded by external or distanced groups. They are not directly employed by the company and include sub contractors, self-employed workers, temporary staff agencies and outsourcing. According to Bryson and Blackwell (2006) a rise in numerical flexibility through temporary contracts is unsatisfactory due to inconsistencies and lack of stability for management. However, there are also criticisms of the model focus mainly on three aspects. First is the sloppiness in conceptual specification. The model's assumption of homogeneity within the core group and within the peripheral group is not an

accurate reflection of reality. It is also difficult to analyse the make-up of the core. Some writers have discussed a variety of work arrangements that comprise the periphery, but have tended to treat the core as a fairly homogenous group. Moreover, there is a counter argument to this. To view core and peripheral workers as occupying positions in separate parts of the organisation is to neglect considering ways in which these groups of workers may work together within the same departments. They may even perform the same jobs within an organization. Secondly is the lack of unequivocal empirical support for the model as description. The relationship between the core and periphery sector is more elaborate than is generally assumed by the core-periphery model. It may not always be the case, for example, that workers in the periphery are used to protect the core. In addition, these two groups of employees may be related in other ways, such as recruitment and selection of temporary agency staff for permanent positions. Thirdly, is the covert ideological agenda embodied in the model as description. It is questionable whether the flexible firm model shows both the core and periphery labour force as separate employment categories. Some writers have found that in the hospitality industry, part-time and temporary staffs are extensively used to provide essential core services. There is some evidence from the British retailing and hospitality industry that part-time, temporary and casual staff make up the core rather than the periphery. They are essential to the organization. Others have found that the use of temporary workers is more likely to occur where demand is predictable. Also, overtime is the preferred method to achieve temporary flexibility where demand is unpredictable. Thus temporary workers are not replacing standard workers. On the other hand, there is evidence that suggests that employers and many trade unionists regard part-time workers as marginal. Part-time and temporary employees are also treated as distinct labour force segments. Other studies show that temporary work appears to be a screening procedure to recruit permanent staff rather than a strategy to increase a periphery. Furthermore, there is evidence that the chief reason for using selfemployed workers is for specialist skills which are unavailable in the core work-force. It is not to provide numerical flexibility..