Le molte funzioni del lavoro interinale in Italia: da strumento di flessibilità a contratto di prova

The paper explores the reasons behind the success of Temporary Help Agency workers in Italy, focussing on its role to fit a vacancy on a permanent basis. The lack of alternative instruments to facilitate the match between the supply and demand of labour helped the growth of the sector. The empirical analysis shows that the probability to transform a contract with a temporary help agency to a standard contract is maximum when the length of the temporary contract is intermediate, i.e. sufficiently long to test the worker but not too long to be excessively costly compared with other labour market instruments.