Hey eggheads: Part-time work is the new normal, and that's horrible
Click to read a Wall Street Journal story about part-time workers
There's "employed" as defined by government statistics. And then there's "employed," but not even working enough hours to pay the rent.
Roughly five percent of U.S. workers are stuck in part-time jobs when they really want full-time work. It's a problem that's not going away, even as the headline unemployment number continues to drop. Economists continue to gnash their teeth trying to understand the labor mess left behind by the Great Recession. Is this a normal part of a recovery cycle, with businesses only stepping gently into investment phase? Will part-timers convert to full-timers as conditions continue to improve? (Here's a good Wall Street Journal story exploring the issue)
Sometimes, I hate economists. who often seem detached from the real world. Why would a company hire one full-time worker and pay benefits when it can hire two 20-hour-a-week workers on the cheap? Why wouldn't a company fire every 50-something employee with pricey family health care and hire a bunch of single 20-somethings at half price? There is no reason. You're a fool if you don't see it happening all around you. The nature of labor has changed dramatically, and workers are in big trouble..so much trouble that it is changing the nature of the way American society is organized.
Click to learn about The Restless Project
American workers are disposable, and getting more disposable all the time. One main reason: Computers and "Big Data" are running over workers and families like a Mack truck. Read this heart-wrenching Jodi Kantor story about firms that use high-tech scheduling software to optimize labor deployment -- sounds wonderful! -- which leads to part-time single moms being shifted into crazy hours (closing until 10 p.m., opening the next day at 5 a.m.), and you'll see the truth. We never had the robot war 1960s sci-fi warned us about. It was a bloodless coup. Computers won.
This is where my two areas of interest -- technology's unintended consequences and consumer rights -- collide. Why are we restless? Because a database is deciding what hours we will work, what our pay raise (or cut) will be, and when we will be unemployed. (Click to learn more about The Restless Project)
This is no temporary result from an economic cycle. The Great Recession was merely an excuse for corporations to clean house and live lean. An excuse to try out one worker-unfriendly policy after another. Sure, there are companies that treat workers well, and lots of them. Sure there are places that let older workers live out their last income-friendly years in dignity. I salute them. But they, you must know, are a happy accident. And most of them are one shareholder fight away from dumping their health care coverage, cutting salaries or outright throwing all the old folks overboard.
People act like this is life in a market economy. It is anything but. In a market, both sides of a transaction have leverage and bargaining power. Our labor market today has no leverage. Workers aren't portable; they have to work too hard to hang on to health care coverage. Even worse, outrageous non-compete clauses prevent workers from changing jobs. Free markets require the free flow of information. Employees spend most of their time in the dark. If you don't know your hours have been cut by the computer from 30 to 20 until Thursday afternoon, how can you bargain for more?
Welcome to the new world of the "contingent" work force. That means "just-in-time" for people. No 9-to-5 so families can plan how they'll get the kids to school, let alone how they will pay for school. We are headed headlong towards a country where everyone is a contractor...a perma-free-lancer. By one estimate, 40 percent of U.S. workers will be "contingent" by 2020. The steamroller is as irresistible as a robot invasion.
Unless things change.
Right now, the economy and the consequences of Big Data are changing the way we work faster than most people appreciate. Things are certainly changing much faster than government policies can follow. This is a disaster for the American family. It's a disaster for you. If you aren't stuck with part-time work, or you don't fear your company will dump you as soon as you are perceived as an expensive employee, you aren't paying attention. We need reasonable laws requiring companies to follow humane rules when setting hours, when cutting hours, and when laying off older workers. We need workers to regain bargaining power. Fundamentally, we need to decide what we define as "a job" in America. Putting in a few hours here or there at the whim of a computer for take-home pay of about $6 an hour with no benefits isn't a job. It isn't even dignified.