Modest Increases In Contingent Work

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT? One claim made by many about the New Economy is that while U.S. corporations are restructuring successfully, they are doing it by converting full-time, permanent jobs into part-time, temporary, and contract work. Data on the share of workers who are "contingent" suggest that this claim is overstated.

THE TREND: Using the broadest definition of contingent work-namely, part-time, contract, and temporary workers-it is clear that the share of the workforce that could qualify as contingent has grown slowly, from about 25 percent in 1980 to about 28 in 1996. In some regions of the country, such as Silicon Valley, contingent workers appear to have grown as a share of the workforce. Similarly, some occupations are more affected than others. However, overall contingent work is not the nature of work in the 1990s. In 1995, fewer than one in 10 workers-9.9 percent of the total workforce (12.1 million people)-had alternative work arrangements (8.3 were independent contractors, 2 million were working "on call," between 1.2 million and 2.1 million were working for temporary help agencies, and 652,000 were working for contract firms).³⁴ Workers who expected their jobs to end within a year made up an even smaller share-2.8 percent of the workforce. And overall, with the exception of temp jobs, which increased from 1 million in 1986 to 2.1 million in 1997, these numbers have increased slowly, if at all. For example, between 1975 and 1994, self-employment (the largest contingent group-85 percent of the "independent contractor" category) remained level at 8.7 percent (10.6 million), an all-time low.³⁵

THE DATA:

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