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Executive Summary
The labor market continues to recover, but a stubbornly high rate of underemployment persists as more than five million Americans are working part-time for economic reasons (U.S. BLS 2015a; 2015b). Not only are many of this type of underemployed worker, by definition, scheduled for fewer hours, days, or weeks than they prefer to be working, the daily timing of their work schedules can often be irregular or unpredictable. This both constrains consumer spending and complicates the daily work lives of such workers, particularly those navigating through nonwork responsibilities such as caregiving. This variability of work hours contributes to income instability and thus, adversely affects not only household consumption but general macroeconomic performance.
The plight of employees with unstable work schedules is demonstrated here with new findings, using General Social Survey (GSS) data. These findings (as well as key findings from other research) are highlighted below.
Irregular scheduling
About 10 percent of the workforce is assigned to irregular and on-call work shift times and this figure is likely low.1 Add to this the roughly 7 percent of the employed who work split or rotating shifts and there are about 17 percent of the workforce with unstable work shift schedules.
Six percent of hourly workers, 8 percent of salaried workers, and 30 percent of those paid on some other basis work irregular or on-call shifts. Adding in split or rotating shifts, the shares working unstable work schedules are 16 percent (hourly), 12 percent (salaried) and 36 percent (other).
By income level, the lowest income workers face the most irregular work schedules.
Workers paid under $22,500 per year are more likely to work on irregular schedules than workers in the income bracket above that (workers in the latter bracket who are salaried would be just above the current salary minimum threshold for assured FLSA overtime coverage).
Irregular shift work is associated with working longer weekly hours.
By occupation type, about 15 percent of sales and related occupations have irregular or on-call schedules.
By industry, irregular scheduling is most prevalent in agriculture, personal services, business/repair services, entertainment/recreation, finance/insurance/real estate, retail trade, and transportation communications.
Estimates of the proportion of the workforce with “variable hours,” in terms of not being able to specify a “usual” workweek (according to Current Population Survey, not GSS data), are remarkably consistent—almost 10 percent of workers overall. Being part-time more than doubled the likelihood of having hours that vary weekly. The share with variable workweeks also is higher in certain occupations and industries, such as sales, and lower in others, such as professional, managerial, and administrative support. Also, the prevalence is reduced for union members, married workers, government employees, whites, men, and workers with a higher level of education.
Nearly half of workers (45 percent) surveyed by the International Social Survey Program said that their “employer decides” their work schedule. Only 15 percent perceived that they were “free to decide” their work schedule. The remaining 40 percent felt they could “decide within limits.” This conforms to another study of “early career” workers; just under half of hourly early career workers surveyed in the National Longitudinal Study of Youth said they have their daily start and end times of work decided entirely by their employer, without their input.
Irregular scheduling and outcomes
Employees who work irregular shift times, in contrast with those with more standard, regular shift times, experience greater work-family conflict, and sometimes experience greater work stress.
Less than 11 percent of workers on “regular” work schedules report “often” experiencing work-family conflict in contrast with as many as 26 percent of irregular/on