Starting flexible, always flexible? The relation of early temporary employment and young workers employment trajectories in the Netherlands

Using register data from Statistics Netherlands (2009-2019), this paper examines the effect of the first employment contract on early career outcomes for a cohort of young workers who entered the Dutch labour market in the period from late 2009-2013. Instead of looking at the timing of isolated transitions between employment states, 6-year-long trajectories are considered to identify differences in the probability of experiencing upward mobility careers. Applying a Mixture Hidden Markov Model, eight distinct states of employment quality characterized by different contract types and incomes are identified. Transitions between these employment states reveal four early career patterns that differ according to their upward and downward mobility. Our results show that while fixed-term contracts often facilitate upward mobility, on-call and temporary agency work early in one's career can negatively impact long-term labour market integration. However, although the initial contract type is associated with different career trajectories, we find that inequalities in human capital are more important than differences in the type of initial contract.