Labour flexibility and ender in the service sector: A study of employment ractices in law and accounting firms

Abstract

In seeking to increase the flexibility of their use of employee time, employers can pursue strategies based on the employment of casual and part-time workers (numerical flexibility) or strategies based on ad hoc variation of the working hours of permanent employees (working time flexibility). Patterns of flexibility strategies and their implications are examined in the context of a highly feminised sector of work’clerical and administrative employment in law and accounting firms. We consider whether, as is often assumed, working time flexibility strategies are generally better for employees because they avoid the substitution of core, high quality jobs with the peripheral, relatively insecur..