Contingent work
Contingent work is employment characterized by limited job security, variable hours, or a temporary relationship between workers and employers.
Temporary work: Employment arranged for a limited period, often through a staffing agency or fixed-term contract. Its defined duration makes it a central form of contingent employment.
Staffing agency: A firm that recruits workers and places them with client employers, often for temporary assignments. Agencies can separate the worker’s formal employer from the workplace directing daily tasks.
Precarious work: Employment marked by insecurity, low bargaining power, or inadequate pay and protections. Contingent work can produce precarity when short-term status combines with weak protections.
Permanent employment: Employment without a predetermined end date, generally intended to continue indefinitely. It contrasts with contingent jobs through its lack of a scheduled endpoint.
Independent contractor: A self-employed worker hired to provide services under a contract rather than as an employee. Contractor status is a common, though legally distinct, way contingent work is organized.
Employment contract: An agreement specifying the terms and conditions of an employment relationship. Its duration and terms can establish whether a job is temporary, variable, or ongoing.
Income volatility: Frequent or substantial changes in a person’s income over time. Variable hours and intermittent assignments can make contingent workers’ earnings fluctuate.
Full-time employment: Employment based on a regular workload meeting a jurisdiction’s or employer’s full-time threshold. Regular, substantial hours differ from the variable schedules common in contingent work.
On-call work: Employment in which workers must be available for shifts scheduled as needed. Unpredictable scheduling makes hours contingent on an employer’s changing demand.
Worker classification: The legal determination of whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor. Classification governs access to employment protections and employer obligations.