What Do We Know about Contracting Out in the United States? Evidence from Household and Establishment Surveys

A variety of evidence points to significant growth in domestic contracting out over the last two decades, yet the phenomenon is not well documented. In this paper, we pull together data from various sources to shed light on the extent of and trends in domestic outsourcing, the occupations in which it has grown, and the industries engaging in outsourcing for the employment services sector, which has been a particularly important area of domestic outsourcing. In addition, we examine evidence of contracting out of selected occupations to other sectors. We point to many gaps in our knowledge on trends in domestic outsourcing and its implications for employment patterns and to inconsistencies across data sets in the information that is available. We recommend steps to improve data in this area.contracting out, outsourcing, employment services, houseman

Manufacturers' Outsourcing to Employment Services

We estimate the effects of manufacturers' use of employment services—comprised primarily of temporary help and professional employer organizations—on measured employment and labor productivity in manufacturing between 1989 and 2004. A major contribution of the paper is the construction of panel data on employment by occupation and industry from the Occupational Employment Statistics program. We use these data to document the dramatic rise of production and other manual occupations within the employment services sector and, in conjunction with information from the Contingent Worker Supplements, to estimate the number of employment services workers assigned to manufacturing over the period. Although measured employment in manufacturing declined by 4.1 percent from 1989 to 2000, counting employment services workers assigned to manufacturing, employment in that sector actually rose by an estimated 1.4 percent. Factoring in manufacturers' use of employment services workers does not erase the large declines in manufacturing employment since 2000, but a growing share of manufacturing work in the United States is being performed by employees of staffing agencies. In 2004, employment services workers added an estimated 8.7 percent to direct-hire manufacturing employment, compared to just 2.3 percent in 1989. In addition, we estimate that manufacturers' outsourcing to employment services significantly inflated manufacturing labor productivity measures, accounting for 0.5 percentage points of the annual growth rate from 1989 to 2000 and from 2001 to 2004. Although multifactor productivity measures should adjust for such outsourcing, available evidence suggests that KLEMS, the multifactor productivity measure for manufacturing, does not fully capture the relatively large effects that outsourcing to staffing services has on manufacturing productivity.productivity, manufacturing, outsourcing, measurement, houseman

Manufacturers\u27 Outsourcing to Employment Services

We estimate the effects of manufacturers\u27 use of employment services—comprised primarily of temporary help and professional employer organizations—on measured employment and labor productivity in manufacturing between 1989 and 2004. A major contribution of the paper is the construction of panel data on employment by occupation and industry from the Occupational Employment Statistics program. We use these data to document the dramatic rise of production and other manual occupations within the employment services sector and, in conjunction with information from the Contingent Worker Supplements, to estimate the number of employment services workers assigned to manufacturing over the period. Although measured employment in manufacturing declined by 4.1 percent from 1989 to 2000, counting employment services workers assigned to manufacturing, employment in that sector actually rose by an estimated 1.4 percent. Factoring in manufacturers\u27 use of employment services workers does not erase the large declines in manufacturing employment since 2000, but a growing share of manufacturing work in the United States is being performed by employees of staffing agencies. In 2004, employment services workers added an estimated 8.7 percent to direct-hire manufacturing employment, compared to just 2.3 percent in 1989. In addition, we estimate that manufacturers\u27 outsourcing to employment services significantly inflated manufacturing labor productivity measures, accounting for 0.5 percentage points of the annual growth rate from 1989 to 2000 and from 2001 to 2004. Although multifactor productivity measures should adjust for such outsourcing, available evidence suggests that KLEMS, the multifactor productivity measure for manufacturing, does not fully capture the relatively large effects that outsourcing to staffing services has on manufacturing productivity

What Do We Know about Contracting Out in the United States? Evidence from Household and Establishment Surveys

A variety of evidence points to significant growth in domestic contracting out over the last two decades, yet the phenomenon is not well documented. In this paper, we pull together data from various sources to shed light on the extent of and trends in domestic outsourcing, the occupations in which it has grown, and the industries engaging in outsourcing for the employment services sector, which has been a particularly important area of domestic outsourcing. In addition, we examine evidence of contracting out of selected occupations to other sectors. We point to many gaps in our knowledge on trends in domestic outsourcing and its implications for employment patterns and to inconsistencies across data sets in the information that is available. We recommend steps to improve data in this area

The Clustering of Extremely Red Objects

We measure the clustering of Extremely Red Objects (EROs) in ~8 deg^2 of the NOAO Deep Wide Field Survey Bo\"otes field in order to establish robust links between ERO z~1.2 and local galaxy z<0.1 populations. Three different color selection criteria from the literature are analyzed to assess the consequences of using different criteria for selecting EROs. Specifically, our samples are (R-K_s)>5.0 (28,724 galaxies), (I-K_s)>4.0 (22,451 galaxies) and (I-[3.6])>5.0 (64,370 galaxies). Magnitude-limited samples show the correlation length (r_0) to increase for more luminous EROs, implying a correlation with stellar mass. We can separate star-forming and passive ERO populations using the (K_s-[24]) and ([3.6]-[24]) colors to K_s=18.4 and [3.6]=17.5, respectively. Star-forming and passive EROs in magnitude limited samples have different clustering properties and host dark halo masses, and cannot be simply understood as a single population. Based on the clustering, we find that bright passive EROs are the likely progenitors of >4L^* elliptical galaxies. Bright EROs with ongoing star formation were found to occupy denser environments than star-forming galaxies in the local Universe, making these the likely progenitors of >L^* local ellipticals. This suggests that the progenitors of massive >4L^* local ellipticals had stopped forming stars by z>1.2, but that the progenitors of less massive ellipticals (down to L^*) can still show significant star formation at this epoch.Comment: 19 pages, 16 figures, 4 tables, Accepted to ApJ 27th November 201