Service sector jobs in the United States are characterized by low pay, few fringe benefits, and limited employee control over scheduled work days and times.1 Many service sector employers across the country rely on just-in-time and on-call scheduling practices designed to minimize labor costs by closely aligning staffing with consumer demand.2 These practices can introduce significant instability into the lives of workers and their families.3
Service sector jobs in the United States are characterized by low pay, few fringe benefits, and limited employee control over scheduled work days and times.1 Many service sector employers across the country rely on just-in-time and on-call scheduling practices designed to minimize labor costs by closely aligning staffing with consumer demand.2 These practices can introduce significant instability into the lives of workers and their families.3
In September 2016, Seattle adopted a Secure Scheduling Ordinance (SSO), making Seattle an early adopter of guidelines for employer scheduling of employees designed to promote work hour and income predictability. The ordinance went into effect on July 1, 2017. The Secure Scheduling Ordinance (SSO) calls for a baseline study, as well as impact evaluations in the first and second years after implementation. The City of Seattle’s Office of City Auditor (OCA) has contracted with a team of academic researchers to conduct these evaluations for both workers and employers. The Secure Scheduling research team includes national experts on labor standards, employer...
Nearly 100,000 workers are employed in the retail and food service sector in the Philadelphia metropolitan area.1 Nationally, jobs in the service sector are characterized by low pay and few fringe benefits, and workers employed in the service sector have little control over the days and times that they will work.2 In addition, many service sector employers across the country rely on just-in-time and on-call scheduling practices designed to minimize labor costs by closely aligning staffing with consumer demand.3 These practices can introduce a great deal of instability into the lives of workers and their families.4
This new EPIC research brief by Daniel Schneider (UC Berkeley) and Kristen Harknett (University of Pennsylvania) enhances our understanding of the connections between income swings and family outcomes for hourly retail workers. These workers are vulnerable to income shocks because they earn low wages, have changing, often unpredictable schedules, and are paid hourly. Many experience severe degrees of income volatility on a weekto-week basis, driven partly by unpredictable and unstable scheduling. The brief presents results from the Retail Work and Family Life survey, a national survey of service sector workers. T
