Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

CiteULike is a free service for managing and discovering scholarly references - click here to get started.

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Work, Employment & Society
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in Web of Science
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Kirkpatrick, I.
Right arrow Articles by Hoque, K.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

A retreat from permanent employment?

Accounting for the rise of professional agency work in UK public services

Ian Kirkpatrick

Leeds University Business School

Kim Hoque

Nottingham University Business School

The last five years have witnessed a steady growth in the use of agency workers to fill core professional roles in public sector organizations. Whereas in the past the use of agency workers was driven mainly by employer demands for improved flexibility, this current expansion is predominantly supply led occurring against a backdrop of increasingly tight labour markets. In this article our objective is to explore some of the factors that lie behind this change. Specifically, we raise questions about how far current trends can be explained using the ‘free agent perspective’ and the notion of portfolio careers. Focusing on one group of professionals in the UK public sector -local authority social workers -we find only limited evidence to support this interpretation. Instead, it is argued that current moves into agency work are in large part a reaction to increasing rigidities in the employment system and to deteriorating conditions of work.

Key Words: agency workers • free agent perspective • portfolio careers • public sector • social care

Work, Employment & Society, Vol. 20, No. 4, 649-666 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/0950017006069806
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Br J Soc WorkHome page
M. Carey
The Order of Chaos: Exploring Agency Care Managers' Construction of Social Order within Fragmented Worlds of State Social Work
Br. J. Soc. Work, April 1, 2009; 39(3): 556 - 573.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Human RelationsHome page
E. Kelan
Gender, risk and employment insecurity: The masculine breadwinner subtext
Human Relations, September 1, 2008; 61(9): 1171 - 1202.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 Journal of Social WorkHome page
M. Carey
White-Collar Proletariat?: Braverman, the Deskilling/Upskilling of Social Work and the Paradoxical Life of the Agency Care Manager
Journal of Social Work, April 1, 2007; 7(1): 93 - 114.
[Abstract] [PDF]