Job Growth in Last Decade Was in Temp and Contract

Neil Irwin:

Job Growth in Last Decade Was in Temp and Contract: ...new research ... indicates the proportion of American workers who don’t have traditional jobs — who instead work as independent contractors, through temporary services or on-call — has soared in the last decade. ...

Most remarkably, the number of Americans using these alternate work arrangements rose 9.4 million from 2005 to 2015. That was greater than the rise in overall employment, meaning there was a small net decline in the number of workers with conventional jobs.

That, in turn, raises still bigger questions about how employers have succeeded at shifting much the burden of providing social insurance onto workers, and what technological and economic forces are driving the shift. ...

This change in behavior has profound implications on social insurance. ...