Constrained agencies: The emergence of Singapore's distinctive temporary staffing industry

Abstract

This paper presents the first economic geography study of Singapore's temporary staffing industry. Drawing on secondary data and semi‐structured interviews with trade association representatives and senior executives from temporary staffing agencies, it examines the structure and characteristics of Singapore's industry and, more specifically, how its distinctive institutional configuration influences the activities of staffing agencies and the industry's overall trajectory. While temporary staffing in Singapore has experienced steady growth since the turn of the millennium, growth is ultimately constrained by both Singapore's regulatory environment and the inherent nature of its labour market. As such, the temporary staffing industry is still relatively small today, and has become increasingly saturated with strong competition between transnational and domestic agencies. Empirically, analysis of the Singapore case contributes to the wider literature on temporary staffing markets by profiling the nature and growth dynamics of a small and emerging temporary staffing market. Conceptually, the study reveals under‐studied aspects in current work relating to how the market is shaped by intersections with shifting global divisions of labour, the nature of the state's managed immigration regime and elements of national labour‐market culture.