Labor outsourcing: between efficiency and social equity

Abstract

Production models have changed considerably from a paradigm based in internalize as many processes and business activities to models based in subcontracting or outsourcing, where companies engage only what is commonly called as core business. Outsourcing or subcontracting is usually positive to produce the so-called exchange efficiency, however, it can also be a vehicle for lack of minimum labor standards. Colombia's labor market has not been immune to this phenomenon. The abuse of these mechanisms have generated strong measures to restrict any practice of outsourcing or subcontracting, including those that seem rational or efficient. The goal of this paper is to identify how production models have turned to an outsourced model in Colombia as an expression of labor flexibility demands; which institutional mechanisms have been used (or abused) to apply that model into human resource provision and how efficient result the strategies that restrict this model.