Research Brief The labor of workers in the retail and food service sector – employed at grocery stores, fast food and casual dining restaurants, in hardware and electronics, in retail and working in warehouses, delivery, and fulfillment – is now, in the COVID-19 pandemic, recognized as “essential.” Yet, these frontline workers have long contended with difficult jobs under precarious conditions. In this report, I take a close look at working conditions in the service sector in New England before the onset of the COVID pandemic. I analyze reports of job quality collected by The Shift Project, which surveyed 2,200 hourly...
On July 1, 2017, Seattle implemented one of the nation’s first laws mandating schedule predictability for a subset of workers. The Secure Scheduling Ordinance (SSO) covers hourly workers at retail and food service establishments with 500 or more employees worldwide and at full-service restaurants with at least 500 employees and at least 40 locations worldwide.
Former director of the National Economic Council, Gene Sperling, discusses how COVID has prevented millions of Americans from being there for one another in meaningful moments, but that for the economically disadvantaged this was already a common experience. The Shift Project has examined how many workers at the largest retail and food companies have back-to-back closing and opening shifts, unstable work schedules, and are required to be on-call.
Work schedules in the service sector are often unstable and unpredictable. Chronic uncertainty about the timing of work shifts impedes healthy sleep patterns.
Working parents must arrange some type of care for their young children when they are away at work. For parents with unstable and unpredictable work schedules, the logistics of arranging care can be complex.
Research from The Shift Project points to the prevalence of short-notice, or 'just-in-time,' scheduling at the largest retail and food services companies and examines how these practices affect material hardships, as well as child development and health.
American policymakers have long focused on work as a key means to improve economic wellbeing. Yet, work has become increasingly precarious and polarized.
In a recently published study in the American Sociological Review, The Shift Project finds that White workers in U.S. retail and food-service industries are less likely to have "on-call" shifts. The study also finds that having a manager of a different race factors in whether time off is granted and canceled shifts are avoided, older workers are less likely to be exposed to precarious schedules, and workers with more seniority receive more shifts.
The Shift Project's report on the job quality of California's service sector was commissioned by the Irvine Foundation to increase awareness about the impact that job scheduling and other aspects of job quality have on low-wage workers. The report notes the effects that unpredictable schedules have on daily life, time with family, quality sleep, and more.
