Temporary and direct hire employee differences in Illinois workers' compensation commission filings

Purpose:  Temporary employment is increasing and is associated with greater workplace risk and injury.  While there is an increasing public health focus on identifying strategies to prevent injury, this examines if temporary workers may be vulnerable to unfair compensation when injuries have already occurred.

Methods:  This analysis examines Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission filings from 1980 through 2012 to compare claim rates, total cost of the decision, days of work missed, and percent disability of employees of temporary agencies with a one-to-one random sample of direct hire claims. 

Results:  There were a total of 27,396 claims filed by employees of temporary agencies during this time period.  Gender was not significantly different between groups with approximately 70% of claimants being male; however, temporary workers were more likely to be younger at time of injury, single, have more dependents, and use attorney representation.  Average weekly wage for temporary workers was approximately 62% of that of the direct hire employees ($339±207 compared to $552±336, p<0.0001).  Total award average was $14,935±71,299 for direct hire employees and $7,337±19,567 for temporary workers (p<0.0001).  Total time off from work averaged 12±32 weeks for direct hire employees compared to 7±21 weeks for temporary workers (p<0.0001).  Total percent disability was 14%±17 for both direct hire and temporary employees (p<0.0001). 

Conclusion:  This suggests that there may be differences between temporary workers and direct-hire employees in terms of total workers’ compensation awards and time off work despite similar levels of disability.