On the Job : Is Long-Term Employment a Thing of the Past?

In recent years, a flurry of reports on downsizing, outsourcing, and flexible staffing have created the impression that stable, long-term jobs are a thing of the past. According to conventional wisdom, workers can no longer count on building a career with a single employer, and job security is a rare prize. While there is no shortage of striking anecdotes to fuel these popular beliefs, reliable evidence is harder to come by. Researchers have yet to determine whether we are witnessing a sustained, economy-wide decline in the stability of American jobs, or merely a momentary rupture confined to a few industries and a few classes of workers. On the Job launches a concerted effort to reconcile the conflicting evidence about job stability and security. The book examines the labor force as a whole, not merely the ousted middle managers who have attracted the most publicity. It looks at the situation of women as well as men, young workers as well as old, and workers on part-time, non-standard, or temporary work schedules. The evidence suggests that long-serving managers and professionals suffered an unaccustomed loss of job security in the 1990s, but there is less evidence of change for younger, newer recruits. The authors bring our knowledge of the labor market up to date, connecting current conditions in the labor market with longer-term trends that have evolved over the past two decades. They find that layoffs in the early 1990s disrupted the implicit contract between employers and staff, but it is too soon to declare a permanent revolution in the employment relationship. Having identified the trends, the authors seek to explain them and to examine their possible consequences. If the bonds between employee and employer are weakening, who stands to benefit? Frequent job-switching can be a sign of success for a worker, if each job provides a stepping stone to something better, but research in this book shows that workers gained less from changing jobs in the 1980s and 1990s than in earlier decades. The authors also evaluate the third-party intermediaries, such as temporary help agencies, which profit from the new flexibility in the matching of workers and employers. Besides opening up new angles on the evidence, the authors mark out common ground and pin-point those areas where gaps in our knowledge remain and popular belief runs ahead of reliable evidence. On the Job provides an authoritative basis for spotting the trends and interpreting the fall-out as U.S. employers and employees rethink the terms of their relationship. Changes In Job Stability And Job Security: A Collective Effort To Untangle, Reconcile, And Interpret The Evidence / David Neumark -- Is Job Stability In The United States Falling? Reconciling Trends In The Current Population Survey And The Panel Study Of Income Dynamics / David A. Jaeger And Ann Huff Stevens -- Has Job Stability Declined Yet? New Evidence For The 1990s / David Neumark, Daniel Polsky, And Daniel Hansen -- Trends In Job Instability And Wages For Young Adult Men / Annette Bernhardt ... [et Al.] -- Job Instability And Insecurity For Males And Females In The 1980s And 1990s / Peter Gottschalk And Robert A. Moffitt -- Has Job Stability Vanished In Large Corporations? / Steven G. Allen, Robert L. Clark, And Sylvester J. Schieber -- Declining Job Security / Robert G. Valletta -- Did Job Security Decline In The 1990s? / Jay Stewart -- Job Security Beliefs In The General Social Survey: Evidence On Long-run Trends And Comparability With Other Surveys / Stefanie R. Schmidt -- Long-run Trends In Part-time And Temporary Employment: Toward An Understanding / Alec R. Levenson -- Alternative And Part-time Employment Arrangements As A Response To Job Loss / Henry S. Farber -- The Implications Of Flexible Staffing Arrangements For Job Stability / Susan N. Houseman And Anne E. Polivka -- Examining The Incidence Of Downsizing And Its Effect On Establishment Performance / Peter Cappelli. David Neumark, Editor. Papers Presented At A Conference. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Cover Title, Copyright, Frontmatter Contents Contributors Chapter 1. Changes in Job Stability and Job Security: A Collective Effort to Untangle, Reconcile, and Interpret the Evidence Chapter 2. Is Job Stability in the United States Falling? Reconciling Trends in the Current Population Survey and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics Chapter 3. Has Job Stability Declined Yet? New Evidence for the 1990s Chapter 4. Trends in Job Instability and Wages for Young Adult Men Chapter 5. Job Instability and Insecurity for Males and Females in the 1980s and 1990s Chapter 6. Has Job Stability Vanished in Large Corporations? Chapter 7. Declining Job Security Chapter 8. Did Job Security Decline in the 1990s? Chapter 9. Job Security Beliefs in the General Social Survey: Evidence on Long-Run Trends and Comparability with Other Surveys Chapter 10. Long-Run Trends in Part-Time and Temporary Employment: Toward an Understanding Chapter 11. Alternative and Part-Time Employment Arrangements as a Response to Job Loss Chapter 12. The Implications of Flexible Staffing Arrangements for Job Stability Chapter 13. Examining the Incidence of Downsizing and Its Effect on Establishment Performance Index Looks at changes in the duration of employment for women and men in the period 1964-1996. Considers current trends in part-time and temporary employment