What are “Contract Workers”? A Taxonomy of Degraded Employment Statuses in the “Gig Economy”

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Abstract

What types of work arrangements comprise the contingent, alternative, or precarious workforce in the U.S.? What is the actual size of this workforce? What are the organizational mechanisms that produce precarity, and create deprived and degraded forms of employment? Despite decades of academic discourse, the answers to these basic questions remain to a great extent clouded.
This paper criticizes the Contingent Work Supplement issued by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and its reported findings, over more than 20 years, claiming that the numbers of American workers in "alternative employment arrangements" have remained essentially unchanged. The paper moves beyond the standard list of "alternative employment arrangements" and introduces a taxonomy of "deprived and degraded work arrangements" that more directly addresses concerns about the deterioration of work. It concludes that far greater numbers of American workers than previously thought occupy these precarious forms of employment, suggesting important ramifications for the character and dynamics of our labor markets.

Author

• George Gonos, Florida International University