At 12:02 PM 12/31/96, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>but doesn't this phenomenon deserve a lot of ink if, over time,
>the importance of contingent work is increasing? and if "regular"
>work is becoming more and more like contingent work? that is, if
>contingent work somehow symbolizes where the work organization is
>going, i.e., the shrinkage of the old "primary labor markets" and
>the growth of secondary labor markets?
and Maggie Coleman wrote:
>I'm not sure how people are defining contingent work, but MANPOWER, INC., the
>daily hiring agency used for restaurants and blue collar laboring work is now
>the largest employer in the united states.
Well, yes, but there's not much rigorous evidence that this is the case.
Unfortunately, the BLS's study of contingency was done as a supplement to
the Feb 95 CPS, so there's no earlier data available; we'll see in the
future just how much it's going up. But proxies - like unwilling part-time
and temp employment - are not showing anything like the trajectory you'd
assume from the anecdotal reports. Unwilling part-time work is down as a
share of total employment, and temp firms account for 10% of job growth in
this up-cycle (and only 2% of overall employment). Moreover, the ILO's
study of job tenure and the OECD's of part-time work show no trends over
time that comport with the journalism and word-of-mouth.
The BLS's definition of contingency is "jobs which are structured to last
only a limited period of time"; contingent workers "are those that do not
have an implicit or explicit contract for ongoing employment. They report
employment by three definitions. Here's table A from their report, which
shows the percentage of total employment accounted for by each category.
Unsurprisingly, contingent workers are disporportionally young, female, and
black. About 30% of the contingent under all three definitions were happy
with their contingency, and 55-60% preferred permanent work. So by the
broadest definition, well under 3% of U.S. workers were unwillingly
contingen in 1995. This all surprised the hell out of me when I read it.
Table A. Contingent workers as a percent of total employment, February 1995
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| | % of |
| Definition and alternative estimates of contingent workers |employed|
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Contingent workers are those who do not have an implicit or | |
| explicit contract for ongoing employment. Persons who do | |
| not expect to continue in their jobs for personal reasons | |
| such as retirement or returning to school are not considered | |
| contingent workers, provided that they would have the option | |
| of continuing in the job were it not for these personal | |
| reasons. | |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| | |
| Estimate 1 | |
| | |
| Wage and salary workers who expect their jobs will last for an | |
| additional year or less and who had worked at their jobs for 1 | |
| year or less. Self-employed workers and independent contractors | |
| are excluded from this estimate. For temporary help and contract | |
| workers, contingency is based on the expected duration and tenure | |
| of their employment with the temporary help or contract firm, not | 2.2 |
| with the specific client to whom they are assigned. | |
| | |
| Estimate 2 | |
| | |
| Workers including the self-employed and independent contractors | |
| who expect their employment to last for an additional year or | |
| less and who had worked at their jobs (or been self-employed) for | |
| 1 year or less. For temporary help and contract workers, | |
| contingency is determined on the basis of the expected duration | |
| and tenure with the client to whom they are assigned, instead of | 2.8 |
| their tenure with the temporary help or contract firm. | |
| | |
| | |
| Estimate 3 | |
| | |
| Workers who do not expect their jobs to last. Wage and salary | |
| workers are included even if they already had held the job for | |
| more than 1 year and expect to hold the job for at least an | |
| additional year. The self-employed and independent contractors | |
| are included if they expect their employment to last for an | |
| additional year or less and they had been self-employed or | 4.9 |
| independent contractors for 1 year or less. | |
| | |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Doug
--
Doug Henwood
Left Business Observer
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