The Changing Landscape of Work in the United States: The Logistics Industry and Blue-Collar Work

• In Event: 160 - Section on Inequality, Poverty and Mobility Paper Session. Labor and Inequality

Abstract

Burgeoning sociological interest in logistics as a potential industry for mass blue-collar employment produced a flurry of assessments of the characteristics of logistics work, with the results generally suggesting that the majority of logistics employment is characterized by extremely limited mobility, low wages, and poor working conditions. On the other hand, economic sociologists suggest that those occupying brokerage positions, like logistics workers, ought to be able to leverage their powerful structural positions into increased workplace gains, principally in terms of wages and other financial benefits. In this paper, I assess these two claims by constructing wage equations based on data from the 2009-2011 3-year American Community Survey (ACS) data release to identify the determinants of wages and mobility across a geographically diverse sample of logistics workers. First, I determine if logistics employment, across a wide geography, offers as negative a work experience as previous studies suggest. Next, I consider logistics in comparison to construction workers, another industry employing numerous less-educated, blue-collar workers, to assess if logistics employment is distinct by these quantitative measures. The results of my analysis suggest that logistics work is indeed characterized by limited mobility through returns to education and job type, but also that logistics work is not distinct from work in construction by these measures. Further, logistics work actually demonstrates some minor potential evidence of leveraged brokerage power within logistics in the form of slightly higher logistics wages compared to construction.

Author

• Elizabeth Alexis Sowers, California State University-Channel Islands