Over the past three decades Germany has repeatedly deregulated the law on temporary agency work by stepwise increasing the maximum period for hiring-out employees and allowing tempo- rary work agencies to conclude fixed-term contracts. These reforms should have had an effect on employment duration within temporary work agencies. Based on an informative administrative data set we use a mixed proportional hazard rate model to examine whether employment dura- tion has changed in response to these reforms. We find that the repeated prolongation of the maximum period for hiring-out employees significantly increased average employment duration while the authorization of fixed-term contracts reduced employment tenure.

Key words: temporary agency work, regulation, labor law, hazard rate model.