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Labour Market Segmentation

Sociologyindex, Primary Labor Market, Labour Market Segmentation, Secondary Labour Market, Sociology Books 2012

The Irish political economist John Elliott Cairnes referred to labor market segmentation as that of "noncompeting groups." Theodossiou and Yannopoulos, 1998; Yuhong and Johnes, 2003). Sloane et al. (1993), Orr (1997) and Roig (1999) shed light especially on the existence of labour market segmentation.

In the theory of labor market segmentation, there exists important differences on the demand side which imply differences in compensation and labor market segmentation theory splits the aggregate labor market into the primary labor market and the secondary labour market.

The dual labour market theory states that the labour market can be divided into at least two segments. Regarding changes in French and British labour market as in their educational system since the Eighties, one may address the evolution of their labour market segmentation. Is the predominance of Internal Labour Market in France and Occupational Labour Market in Great Britain (Eyraud, Marsden, Silvestre,1990) still relevant ?

The structural changes of the labour market in the industrialised economies have become an important topic in labour market research and practical labour market policy.

Labour market segmentation, flexibility, and recession: a British Columbian case study
R Hayter, T J Barnes - Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy 10(3) 333 – 353
Abstract. The purpose in this paper is to examine theories of labour market segmentation within the context of the early 1980s recession, and its immediate aftermath, in British Columbia, Canada. In particular, the conclusions are based on a large sample of firms in the manufacturing, wholesale, and producer service sectors for the period 1981 - 86. The paper is divided into four parts: first is a review of Doeringer's and Piore's classic presentation of segmentation theory focusing on the Fordist firm, and a comparison of it with more recent statements on labour markets made by Atkinson in connection with his work on the flexible firm. Second is a brief description of the recent changes affecting the economy in British Columbia over the last decade or so. Third, employment change and labour segmentation are examined in terms of occupational, gender, and industry characteristics for manufacturing, wholesaling, and producer service sectors in British Columbia. Last, given that the authors's evidence is in terms of aggregate trends, the fourth section provides three case studies, one drawn from each sector.

Temporary Contracts and Labour Market Segmentation in Spain - An Employment-Rent Approach - Javier G. Polavieja
Pompeu Fabra University, Department of Political and Social Sciences
European Sociological Review 19:501-517 (2003) © 2003 Oxford University Press
Deregulation through temporary employment has generated important inequalities in the Spanish labour market. The article presents a theoretical model as well as empirical evidence to explain this process. The main thrust of the model is seeing labour market structures as always being the result of micro-level strategies of employers and employees over employment rents. The employment-rent approach focuses on the impact of deregulation through temporary employment on the employment-rent optimization strategies of both employers and employees at the micro-level. Drawing on recent developments in labour economics, two main micro-level effects of deregulation are identified, the so-called ‘incentive’ and ‘buffer’ mechanisms. These two mechanisms are expected to reinforce each other until an equilibrium state in the segmentation process is reached. The employment-rent model is tested using data from the Spanish Labour Force Survey for the period 1987–1997, as well as data on wages drawn from the Survey on Class Structure, Class Consciousness and Class Biography (1991). The evidence proves consistent with the predictions of the model.

Labour Market Segmentation and Informal Work in Southern Europe
Enzo Mingione, University of Padova, Italy
European Urban and Regional Studies, Vol. 2, No. 2, 121-143 (1995)
In this article I explore the hypothesis that the four countries which make up the southern part of the European Union constitute variants on a particular model of capitalist development. This model is char acterized by relatively dynamic family enterprises and self-employment, non-wage contributions to house hold livelihood strategies; and the relatively limited formation of a fully proletarianized working class engaged in manufacturing industry.

Labour Market Segmentation in Central Europe during the First Years of Transition
Ariane Pailhé, National Institute of Demographic Studies (INED)
Labour, Vol. 17, pp. 127-152, March 2003
Abstract: The labour markets of the centrally planned economies of Central Europe (the former Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland) were divided into several segments. Using estimates taken from a two-regime model, we show that segmentation has persisted throughout the first years of systemic change. However, labour market segmentation has evolved to some extent. Firms that used to have priority now coexist alongside new activities within the primary segment (in particular, foreign firms and activities in the banking and financial sector). In this way, labour market segmentation results both in the appearance of new, formal institutions and the persistence of informal institutions left over from the past, owing to the growth in market uncertainty.

Labour Market Segmentation Revisited: A Study of the Dutch Call Centre Sector
Grip Andries de, Sieben Inge, Jaarsveld Danielle van (ROA wp)
Abstract: Employment in the call centre sector in the Netherlands, similar to the trend in other European countries, is expanding greatly. In 2001, Datamonitor (2002) estimated that 1,266 call centres were operating in the Netherlands. This number is expected to have risen to roughly 2,000 in 2006. An estimated 188,000 people work in this sector at the moment, representing 2.5% of the entire working population in the Netherlands. This represents the highest percentage in Europe with the exception of Ireland. The call centre workforce is employed by in-house and subcontractor call centres. In-house call centres are part of the firm for which they handle customer contacts, whereas subcontractor call centres, which provide customer contact services for other firms or institutions. The call centre sector features a large number of employees working in so-called atypical employment contracts, in particular ‘agents’ who handle the actual customer contacts (De Grip, Hoevenberg & Willems, 1997). Agents are often hired into temporary appointments, part-time contracts, irregular shifts, stand-by contracts, et cetera. The use of such atypical contracts is closely related to the great need for flexibility in the deployment of staff (Kalleberg, 2000). Such workforce flexibility is necessary in order to negotiate peaks and valleys in call volumes. In addition, many call centres prioritize on cost reduction, and this approach constrains investment in personnel. Call centres are therefore often classified as ‘electronic sweatshops’ offering only ‘dead-end jobs’ (Taylor, et al., 2002; Deery & Kinnie, 2004).The labour market for call centre agents could thus be characterised as a ‘secondary labour market’ of insecure, poorly paid jobs without any career opportunities (see e.g. Dekker, De Grip & Heijke, 2002). However, the call centre sector is heterogeneous with respect to employment conditions. For example, agents who work in in-house call centres have better employment conditions than their counterparts in subcontractor call centres. The Dutch industrial relations system offers one explanation for this difference. Agents working in in-house call centres have protections defined by the collective labour agreement (CLA) of the firm the call centre agents work in. In contrast, the subcontractor call centres did not have any comparable protections or their own CLA until 2003. The establishment of a CLA that covers agents employed in Dutch subcontractor call centres in 2003 is a unique phenomenon in the European call centre market (Roland, 2000b).The difference in working conditions between in-house and subcontractor call centres raises the following research question addressed in this paper: To what extent is the labour market for call centre agents a dual labour market, with a secondary segment in the subcontractor call centres, and a primary segment in the form of a ‘professional labour market’ in the in-house call centres?To answer this question, we analyze survey data collected from a national survey of call centre managers in the Netherlands. Moreover, we investigate whether the aforementioned need for workforce flexibility may provide an explanation for the labour market segmentation in the call centre sector and if this segmentation is embedded in Dutch industrial relations. We begin with a brief overview of labour market segmentation theory. Next, we describe the dataset, and provide some brief background about the Dutch call centre sector and its workforce. Then, we investigate the differences between employment conditions in in-house and subcontractor call centres, to determine whether there is a segmented labour markets. Finally, we assess the influence of industrial relations in the call centre sector, and determine whether these reflect the labour market segmentation.

Labour market segmentation and the state: the New Zealand experience
Peter Brosnan, Griffith University Brisbane, Australia
David Rea and Moira Wilson, University of Cambridge UK
Abstract: This paper analyses the role of the state in the historical process of labour market segmentation. The paper utilises the existing segmentation literature, and develops a framework to understand the state's role in segmentation. The New Zealand labour market is then used as an example of the state's role in the process of labour market segmentation.

The industrial structure and labour market segmentation: Urban and regional implications
Michael W. Danson, Department of Social and Economic Research, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
Abstract: Danson M. W. (1982) The industrial structure and labour market segmentation: urban and regional implications, Reg. Studies 16, 255-65. We argue that dualism in the industrial structure, as suggested by Averitt, 1968, and Galbraith, 1967, determines stratification and segmentation in the labour market, as suggested by Kerr, 1954, Piore, 1973, and Friedmann, 1977. In recognizing this, the urban and regional economist has greater understanding of the processes of change of the last fifty years. In particular, Government and corporate policy, by replacing the pre-1914 centre industries of steel, shipbuilding and engineering with branch and other peripheral plants and firms, has led to a deterioration in the relative position of the inner cities and regions.

Labour Market Segmentation in Small Business
Karl-Heinz Schmidt
Professor Karl-Heinz Schmidt of Paderborn University, West Germany, is currently visiting research scholar at Nagoya University, Japan.
International Small Business Journal, Vol. 2, No. 1, 38-45 (1983)
The structural changes of the labour market in the industrialised economies have become an important topic in labour market research and practical labour market policy. Yet little progress has been made hitherto concerning the market position of different qualities of labour in small enterprises. Referring to West European countries, and especially to West Germany, the paper gives some insight into the functioning of the tripartite labour market and its consequences for employment fluctuations in very small enterprises on the one hand and large firms on the other. The main question is whether small business is marked by labour market segmentation in the same way as has been suggested for large firms by recent developments in labour market theory.

Labour Market Segmentation, Flexibility and Precariousness in the Italian North East
Tattara, Giuseppe, Valentini, Marco
Abstract: Since the late 1970s, inequality has been on the rise in a number of OECD countries. One of the main causes of economic inequality, in Italy as in many other European countries, is rooted in the segmentation of the labour market. The Italian labour market is currently described as deeply segmented between an insider ad an outsider market. In the Italian manufacturing sector the quota of stable workers has declined through time and the number of unstable workers, low qualified and low paid, has increased and represents a non-marginal quota of total employment. Frequently a young worker experiments a succession of temporary contracts at the beginning of his career and develop into a more permanent position But temporary workers have, several times, a different destiny: the situation of precariousness extends to the workers’ entire career and are to be considered as an extreme case of outsiders, who operate in bad working conditions and receive low wages compared to workers hired with an open-end contract. In this research workers in manufacturing are divided between movers and stayers. Both categories show signs of instability. The quota of tenure workers over total workers decreases and movers increase through time in a significant way. Among these are permanent movers whose work histories, fragmented and chaotic, are identified and are compared with those of workers having more stable careers.

Segmentation or Competition in China's Urban Labour Market?
John B. Knight, University of Oxford - Department of Economics
Linda Yueh - Cambridge Journal of Economics, Vol. 33, Issue 1, pp. 79-94, 2009
Abstract: In China, urban residents have traditionally been protected against labour market competition from rural-urban migrants. Over the period of urban economic reform, rural-urban migration was allowed to increase in order to fill the employment gap as growth of labour demand outstripped that of the resident labour force in urban areas. However, as reforms gained pace and controls were lifted, it is plausible that competition for work between migrants and urban residents would have increased. The paper examines whether the relationship is one of segmentation or competition in the labour market. It uses attitudinal responses from two urban surveys. The urban workers who perceive competition from migrants are those who are most vulnerable. The findings are consistent with the presence of continued labour market segmentation, but suggest also that competition between the two groups is increasing.

WHAT BECAME OF LABOUR MARKET SEGMENTATION IN FRANCE: ITS CHANGING DESIGN
François Michon, CNRS, Centre d’Économie de la Sorbonne, Université de Paris
lest.cnrs.fr/IMG/pdf/451.pdf.pdf
ABSTRACT: A survey of thirty years of French literature suggests an assessment of the segmentationist perspective today: a compulsory theoretical reference as soon as one debates the varied nature of the employment relationship; and an old-fashioned reference that is now obscured by more general analyses either of social inequalities or of historical dynamics of productive systems. Reformulations of segmentationist models could give them a better place today.
INTRODUCTION: At the turning point of the 1960s and 1970s, before the oil shocks of the mid-1970s, the French economy was prospering and there was fast growth. Full employment seemed to be assured and visible difficulties were rather ones concerning “over-employment”. And yet, unemployment developed. Its levels can obviously not be compared with what is experienced today. But unemployment dynamics were already growth dynamics. Strong inequalities were associated with it and reflect its “structural” nature. A brief complete overview of the empirical questions, which presided at the time of the spreading of theories concerning the Labour Market Segmentation (LMS) theory, in France, at the watershed of the 1960s-1970s, amounts indeed to what Piore (1972) said about the American case, namely the inability of economic growth to reduce very unequal and localized unemployment.

The labour market segmentation: empirical analysis of Cain's theory (1976)
Jaoul-Grammare, Magali
Applied Economics Letters, Volume 14, Numbers 5-6, April 2007 , pp. 337-341(5)
Abstract: Criticisms addressed to the theory of the human capital take mainly into account the specificity of the labour market. Doeringer and Piore (1971) and Cain (1976) highlight the influence of the situation on the labour market on the individual wage determination. This influence has been studied for various countries (Theodossiou and Yannopoulos, 1998; Yuhong and Johnes, 2003). Sloane et al. (1993), Orr (1997) and Roig (1999) shed light especially the existence of labour market segmentation. On the contrary, for Van Ophem (1987), the theory of the segmentation of the labour market has been to be rejected. Following this, the aim of this article is to test the existence of the labour market segmentation described by Cain (1976) for the case of France on the last twenty years. The use of various statistical techniques allows us to check on the one hand, the connection between the qualifications and the place occupied on the labour market and on the other hand to identify the existence of several labour markets.

Family labour supply and labour market segmentation
Author: John Baffoe-Bonnie, Department of Economics, Pennsylvania State University, USA
Abstract: This paper examines the differences in individuals' labour supply decisions in different segments of the labour market. It tests one of the main hypotheses of the dual labour market theory that the labour market can be divided into at least two segments, and also whether the family labour supply decisions of individuals differ in the two segments. The possibility of individuals' wage rates depending on the number of hours worked is recognized and a model is developed in which both the wage rates and hours of work of individuals are jointly determined, with the personal income tax system as an intervening variable since hours of labour supply depend on the post tax wage rate whereas if the marginal product of labour is a positive function of hours worked, this affects the pre-tax wage rates. Other alternative wage functions are specified and a simultaneous equations labour supply model using Three Stage Least Squares (3SLS) procedure is estimated. The results indicate that there was sample selectivity bias in the model. It is concluded that the family labour supply decisions of individuals differ by labour market segment.

Unequal Opportunity Structure and Labour Market Segmentation
Reinhard Kreckel, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg
Sociology, Vol. 14, No. 4, 525-550 (1980) DOI: 10.1177/003803858001400402
Sociology of social stratification and labour market economics have developed in isolation from one another. The present paper attempts to bring these two traditions closer together. The starting point is a critique of the very notion of social `stratification'. A return to Max Weber's idea of `class situation as market situation' and to his concept of `social closure' is advocated. On this basis, a conception of structured social inequality in advanced capitalist societies is developed which is open for conceptual innovations to be taken from labour market economics. A number of approaches to labour market analysis are discussed, and the special significance of several recent contributions related to the so-called `dual labour market theory' is emphasized. This leads up to the construction of a typological model supposed to supersede the traditional notion of social inequality as a system of hierarchically superposed strata. This model comprises eight levels of labour market structuration characterizing structured social inequality in advanced capitalist societies.

Temporary contracts and Labour market segmentation in Spain: An employment-rent approach = Contrats temporaires et segmentation du marché du travail en Espagne
POLAVIEJA Javier G.
European sociological review, 2003, vol. 19, no5, pp. 501-517 ISSN 0266-7215
Abstract: Deregulation through temporary employment has generated important inequalities in the Spanish labour market. The article presents a theoretical model as well as empirical evidence to explain this process. The main thrust of the model is seeing labour market structures as always being the result of micro-level strategies of employers and employees over employment rents. The employment-rent approach focuses on the impact of deregulation through temporary employment on the employment-rent optimization strategies of both employers and employees at the micro-level. Drawing on recent developments in labour economics, two main micro-level effects of deregulation are identified, the so-called 'incentive' and 'buffer' mechanisms. These two mechanisms are expected to reinforce each other until an equilibrium state in the segmentation process is reached. The employment-rent model is tested using data from the Spanish Labour Force Survey for the period 1987-1997, as well as data on wages drawn from the Survey on Class Structure, Class Consciousness and Class Biography (1991). The evidence proves consistent with the predictions of the model

Labour market segmentation: evidence from Cyprus House WJ
POPLINE Document Number: 196095
Geneva, Switzerland, International Labour Office, 1982. [1], 33 p. (Population and Labour Policies Programme Working Paper No. 117.)
Abstract: This paper examines the labor market segmentation (LMS) hypothesis by drawing on data colleted from 20% of the small labor market of Cyprus, a random sample of 38,000 employees. It is hypothesized that the market is segmented according to sex and the two endogenous variables, the public/private sector of employment, and firm size. In order to estimate the degree of LMS, the author questions whether individuals can move from low-wage jobs in the secondary segment to prime jobs in the high-wage segment. Earnings differences between males and females are large, particularly in the private sector, after controlling for various measures of human capital. The public sector's much smaller differentials show fairer recruitment and promotion policies, but pay and employment conditions are protected from outside interference, and those younger than 30 with British or American degrees have assured mobility into the sector's professional ranks. The public sector's role as wage leader, apart from causing earnings differentials between seemingly identical individuals, may also contribute to large-scale unemployment amongst third-level education graduates who now constitute nearly 25% of all the unemployed. The situation is worsening as young Cypriots seek expensive unversity education abroad to compete for government jobs back home. Movements in the private sector were quite restricted between small and large firms over a 4 period of dynamic growth, the age and firm tenure distributions of employees being quite similar between small and large firms. The extent of LMS by firm size is partly explained by differences in the kinds of technology and modes of operation of the different categories of firms, and experience in small firms may not easily be transferred to the higher-paying, larger scale firms. Although demarcation of firm size remains imprecise, the sample was stratified according to firms with less than 20 and those with more than 20 employees. To the extent that mobility between these two categories of firms is restricted, estimated regression coefficients in the separate earnings functions will be unbiased.

Labour market segmentation in Britain: the decline of occupational labour markets and the spread of ‘entry tournaments’
David Marsden, London School of Economics, Centre for Economic Performance
Abstract: This paper reviews the changing pattern of labour market segmentation in Britain since the mid-1970s. In the early 1980s, industrial labour markets in Britain, along with Germany, could be characterised as dominated by occupational labour markets for skilled workers compared with the predominance of firm internal labour markets in France and Italy. These provided for structured entry paths into the relevant occupations and jobs. Britain’s position in this picture has changed as a result of the decline of industrial employment and the institutions on which these occupational markets were built. The second part of the article searches for new models whose importance is increasing in Britain. It examines the spread of highly competitive conditions for entry into certain service sector activities, such as the media, and ‘knowledge intensive’ services where employment has been growing rapidly.

Labour Market Segmentation and the Reserve Army of Labour:
Theory, History, Future Thomas Henry Stubbs, The University of Waikato 2008
Abstract: This thesis begins by revisiting and building on themes of labour market segmentation, with particular reference given to Marx’s seminal account of segmentation in Capital, Vol.1 (Chapter 25).
Marx distinguishes between an active army – the stable full-time employed – and the relative surplus population – the precariously employed reserve army and the residual surplus – and suggests further fragmentation of these main groups into sub-strata. Marx’s perspective of segmentation is grounded in fragments of a general theory of employment that, as a long-term tendency, identifies continual advances in constant capital that abolish work and proliferate the reserve army.
This thesis builds on these themes by formulating a concept, the ‘transference dynamic’, which underpins a general theory of employment segmentation. A short history of segmentation under capitalism traces recent phases of development in both developed and lesser-developed nations. Stress is placed on the role of political configurations that regulate capitalism in ways that can either counter the general tendency, such is the case under the Fordist model of capitalism, or strengthen its logic.
The theory of employment segmentation and the lessons drawn from the historical account are spliced together with an analysis of the contemporary phase of capitalism, labelled here as the neoliberal model of development. It is demonstrated that the coercive international regulatory dynamic of the neoliberal model reasserts and extends the competitive principle of the capitalist mode of production. Through this extension, nations are transformed into competition-states vying for scarce and globally mobile capital to operate on their shores – the primary source of national prosperity and employment – by implementing capital-friendly neoliberalized policy.
This analysis of neoliberal global capitalism reveals an expanding surplus population within a context of deepening international segmentation. This employment crisis is expressed as a hierarchy of nations that is determined in part by their uneven development. Those at the bottom of the hierarchy, comprising a majority portion of the world’s population, contain a massive reserve army and residual surplus population unincorporated into wage-based capitalism, without any obvious support of means of life and with little hope for the future.
Finally, mainstream solutions are criticized for failing to address either long-run or contemporary drivers of the employment crisis. In response, this thesis pitches a project of multi-faceted radical reform that counter-regulates capitalism by adopting a combination of local, national, regional and global forms of democratic socialist governance.

TRAINING AND LABOUR MARKET SEGMENTATION
Paul G. Chapman, University of Dundee
Department of Economics and Management DUNDEE. DDI 4HN, Scotland
Abstract: A two period model of the training decision is analysed using a human capital approach. The segmented labour market model where training opportunities distinguish entrants is compared with a competitive structure with homogeneous entrants. The main conclusions in the paper are the clear effects of training wages and the different effects in the two market structures of both wages and employment prospects in the unskilled market on training.

Do they come back again? Job search, labour market segmentation and state dependence as explanations of repeat unemployment
R. Winter-Ebmer and J. Zweimüller
Empirical Economics, Physica Verlag, An Imprint of Springer-Verlag GmbH
ISSN 0377-7332 (Print) 1435-8921 (Online) Issue Volume 17, Number 2 / June, 1992
Abstract This study investigates the causes of recurrent unemployment. Using data from the Austrian unemployment register we test the explanatory power of three different approaches which appear in the literature: job search theory, labour market segmentation and state dependence. Whereas job search theory does not seem to be able to explain anything, labour market segmentation does. However, the most powerful determinant of the risk of unemployment repetition is past unemployment history. This micro finding is not inconsistent with theories explaining the persistent high level of unemployment rates.

Labour Market Segmentation: a Comparison between France and the UK From the Eighties to nowadays.
Aline Valette, Université de Provence (U1) et Université de la Méditerranée
Abstract: Regarding changes in French and British labour market as in their educational system since the Eighties, one may address the evolution of their labour market segmentation. Is the predominance of Internal Labour Market in France and Occupational Labour Market in Great Britain (Eyraud, Marsden, Silvestre,1990) still relevant ?
We propose a more complex segmentation of labour market with four segments based on tenure, labour mobility and their wage return to account for nowadays situation. Empirical investigations we carried out are based on national labour surveys (Enquête Emploi for France, LFS and GHS for Great Britain). In this paper we expose first investigations and explain which further methods we propose to use in order to characterise French and British labour market segmentation.

Labour Market Segmentation Revisited: A Study of the Dutch Call Centre Sector
Andries de Grip (a.degrip@maastrichtuniversity.nl), Inge Sieben and Jaarsveld Danielle van
No 7, Working Papers from Maastricht : ROA,Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market
Abstract: Employment in the call centre sector in the Netherlands, similar to the trend in other European countries, is expanding greatly. In 2001, Datamonitor (2002) estimated that 1,266 call centres were operating in the Netherlands. This number is expected to have risen to roughly 2,000 in 2006. An estimated 188,000 people work in this sector at the moment, representing 2.5% of the entire working population in the Netherlands. This represents the highest percentage in Europe with the exception of Ireland. The call centre workforce is employed by in-house and subcontractor call centres. In-house call centres are part of the firm for which they handle customer contacts, whereas subcontractor call centres, which provide customer contact services for other firms or institutions. The call centre sector features a large number of employees working in so-called atypical employment contracts, in particular ‘agents’ who handle the actual customer contacts (De Grip, Hoevenberg & Willems, 1997). Agents are often hired into temporary appointments, part-time contracts, irregular shifts, stand-by contracts, et cetera. The use of such atypical contracts is closely related to the great need for flexibility in the deployment of staff (Kalleberg, 2000). Such workforce flexibility is necessary in order to negotiate peaks and valleys in call volumes. In addition, many call centres prioritize on cost reduction, and this approach constrains investment in personnel. Call centres are therefore often classified as ‘electronic sweatshops’ offering only ‘dead-end jobs’ (Taylor, et al., 2002; Deery & Kinnie, 2004).The labour market for call centre agents could thus be characterised as a ‘secondary labour market’ of insecure, poorly paid jobs without any career opportunities (see e.g. Dekker, De Grip & Heijke, 2002). However, the call centre sector is heterogeneous with respect to employment conditions. For example, agents who work in in-house call centres have better employment conditions than their counterparts in subcontractor call centres. The Dutch industrial relations system offers one explanation for this difference. Agents working in in-house call centres have protections defined by the collective labour agreement (CLA) of the firm the call centre agents work in. In contrast, the subcontractor call centres did not have any comparable protections or their own CLA until 2003. The establishment of a CLA that covers agents employed in Dutch subcontractor call centres in 2003 is a unique phenomenon in the European call centre market (Roland, 2000b).The difference in working conditions between in-house and subcontractor call centres raises the following research question addressed in this paper: To what extent is the labour market for call centre agents a dual labour market, with a secondary segment in the subcontractor call centres, and a primary segment in the form of a ‘professional labour market’ in the in-house call centres? To answer this question, we analyze survey data collected from a national survey of call centre managers in the Netherlands. Moreover, we investigate whether the aforementioned need for workforce flexibility may provide an explanation for the labour market segmentation in the call centre sector and if this segmentation is embedded in Dutch industrial relations. We begin with a brief overview of labour market segmentation theory. Next, we describe the dataset, and provide some brief background about the Dutch call centre sector and its workforce. Then, we investigate the differences between employment conditions in in-house and subcontractor call centres, to determine whether there is a segmented labour markets. Finally, we assess the influence of industrial relations in the call centre sector, and determine whether these reflect the labour market segmentation.

Understanding Labour Market Segmentation: Filipina Healthcare Workers in Transnational Toronto
Philip Kelly, Department of Geography, York University, Toronto
Sylvia D’Addario, Department of Geography, University of British Columbia
Paper presented at the Atlantic Metropolis Conference, Halifax, Nova Scotia, November 19th 2004
Abstract: The concentration of visible minority immigrant workers in certain occupations is well-established in the labour market literature. Explanations usually relate to social processes operating at the scale of the urban labour market: social capital/networks, regulatory/institutional frameworks, and constructions of racialised and gendered identities. This paper argues that to understand the high concentrations of Filipino and Filipina workers in Toronto’s healthcare sector we must also examine the transnational linkages that migrants maintain with the places of origin, including the flows of information and capital that pass to prospective migrants back home. Indeed, the process of labour market segmentation begins long before immigrants land in Canada.
Many studies of labour market segmentation rely almost exclusively on the numerical evidence found in census and other large-scale survey data. To establish the existence of segmentation and some of its correlates, this clearly makes sense. But the process of segmentation – the means by which certain groups are channelled and concentrated in certain occupational and sectoral niches – requires a qualitative understanding of the decisions and opportunities taken with respect to labour market participation, training, education, job searches, and, in this case, geographical mobility. In this paper we therefore use conventional measures to establish labour market segmentation, but this represents only the starting point. From there we move on to qualitative interview and focus group data gathered in both Toronto and the Philippines. In Toronto, personal interviews were conducted with 21 individuals including nurses and other healthcare employees, as well as a small selection of employers. In the Philippines 20 personal interviews were conducted with nursing school administrators, nurses, and immigration agents/recruiters, as well as two focus groups with seven nurses who had worked overseas. Quotes from specific interviews are used to illustrate themes that emerged consistently across the set of respondents.

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