Do Contractors Get Rid of Their Most Dangerous Work When They Get Rid of
Abstract
Subcontracting, contingent workers, and alternative employment arrangements are used extensively in the construction industry. Subcontracting has not been reported decrease the dangerous degree in workplace. Contingent workers and workers covered by alternative employment arrangements are less well trained, and then are more precarious at the jobsite, leased workers are the main component of contingent workers and alternative employment arrangements in construction industry. The rates of workplace occupational injury and illness should be rising over time, but, in fact, the rates are decreasing. Result of intuitive thinking do not match fact, in order to explain this mismatch, this paper proposes a hypothesis, i.e., contractors get rid of their most dangerous work when they get rid of direct employees by using worker leasing agencies, and leasing workers’ injuries are not reported in the construction industry but rather in the service sector industry. This essay tests this hypothesis via the econometric model and reaches the following conclusion: in the total construction industry and in the building construction sector, the increase in temporary staff and leased employee expenses will decrease the rate of injuries resulting in lost worktime and decrease the rate of injuries resulting in days-away-from-work, and this kind of relationship is statistically significant at above the 95% level. With the above two serious injuries, we can infer that leased employees replace formal workers in a greater proportion of dangerous work, and thus the incidence of the workplace injuries of formal employees is decreased. Furthermore, the incidence of workplace injuries of leased workers is not reported or is reported inadequately.