Incentivized Precarity: Immigrant Workers in the Chinese Restaurant Industry

• In Event: 20881 - Section on Labor and Labor Movements Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 3: Precarity and Beyond

Abstract

As one of the major employers of Chinese immigrants in the United States, the Chinese restaurant industry has high job turnover rates in a geographically dispersed labor market, facilitated by the understudied phenomenon of online job platforms geared towards the ethnic economy. I examine how workers are induced to participate in a highly precarious industry by developing the concept of incentivized precarity to capture how value is extracted from workers. Despite the constant geographic mobility that job hopping requires, workers are incentivized by the abundance of job opportunities that have become increasingly accessible with the rise of online job platforms in the industry, as well as the possibility of climbing job ladders through job hopping. At the same time, poor living conditions in jobs providing room and board, intensive and unsustainable workloads, and hostile work environments contribute to short tenures. As high turnover rates are normalized as part of the industry, workers find it easier to leave rather than negotiate for better pay or conditions, and willingly participate under extremely precarious conditions due to confidence in the opportunities readily available to them elsewhere, sustaining the exploitative practices of the industry.

Author

• Anna Zhang, Northeastern University