Paul Osterman’s new research argues that more than one-third of U.S. workers have jobs with little employer commitment to their long-term security or advancement. The next question is how that shift affects Latino workers.
More than one in three U.S. workers are treated as “disposable” by their employers, according to labor economist Paul Osterman. In his new book, Disposable Workers: The Transformation of Employment, Osterman estimates that roughly 57 million full- and part-time workers are in jobs where employers make little commitment to their long-term job security or career development.
The term “disposable” does not necessarily mean temporary. A worker can have a regular job and still be disposable if the employer provides little training, limited opportunities for advancement and few expectations of a long-term employment relationship.
Osterman identifies several forms of disposable employment, including contractors, freelancers and employees who work in what he describes as marginal positions within organizations. The common feature is that companies rely on the workers’ labor but make relatively little investment in their future.
The size of this workforce raises a basic question: Who are the 57 million workers Osterman identifies as disposable?
One important part of that question concerns Latino workers.
Latinos represent a significant share of the U.S. workforce and are employed across a wide range of industries and occupations. They include U.S.-born and immigrant workers, professionals and service workers, union members and nonunion workers, employees and independent contractors.
The relevant question is therefore not whether Latino workers are disposable. It is whether Latino workers are disproportionately represented among the workers Osterman defines as disposable.
Answering that question requires looking beyond general measures of contingent or temporary employment. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, for example, measures contingent workers and workers in alternative employment arrangements, but those categories are narrower than Osterman’s definition of disposability.
A worker does not have to be temporary to lack a career path. A person can remain with an employer for years while receiving little training, having limited access to promotions and facing significant uncertainty about continued employment.
This distinction is important when examining Latino workers because employment conditions vary considerably within the Latino population. Immigration status, education, occupation, industry, geography and union membership can all affect a worker’s employment relationship.
Immigrant status may also matter independently of ethnicity. A foreign-born Latino worker and a U.S.-born Latino worker may have similar jobs but different levels of bargaining power, access to professional networks and ability to move between employers.
The data can therefore help separate several questions that are often treated as one.
Are Latino workers more likely than non-Latino workers to be disposable?
Are immigrant workers more likely to be disposable than U.S.-born workers?
Are immigrant Latinos particularly concentrated in disposable employment?
Or are differences largely explained by the types of occupations and industries in which workers are employed?
These distinctions matter because the consequences of disposable employment extend beyond the workplace.
If employers invest less in workers, workers may have fewer opportunities to develop skills and advance within a company. If employment is less stable, workers may carry more of the financial risk associated with changes in demand or economic conditions. And if changing employers becomes the primary way to increase wages or advance professionally, workers may have to bear the costs and risks of moving from one job to another.
For Latino workers, these questions are part of a broader issue of economic mobility.
The United States has a large Latino workforce, and its continued growth will make the quality of Latino employment increasingly important to the country’s overall economic performance. The question is not simply how many Latinos are working, but what kinds of employment relationships those workers have.
Osterman’s estimate provides a way to examine that question.
The starting point is the 57 million workers he identifies as disposable. The next step is to determine how that workforce is distributed by ethnicity, immigration status, occupation and industry.
That analysis can show whether disposable employment is disproportionately affecting Latino workers — and, if it is, whether the difference is associated with immigration, occupation or other characteristics of the labor market.
It can also show something broader: whether the changing structure of employment is creating a growing group of workers who have jobs but fewer opportunities to turn those jobs into stable careers.
