Deconstructing Labor Demand in Today's Advanced Economies: Implications for Low-Wage Employment

Abstract

A commentary examines recent changes in the organization of economic activity that have produced more low-wage jobs, general economic insecurity, & new forms of employment-centered poverty. Although insecurity & poverty have existed in developed countries for a long time, the focus here is on the contribution of new terms of employment to increases in socioeconomic & spatial inequalities. It is argued that the decline of mass production as the propelling force of the economy resulted in a weakening of the broader institutional framework that shaped the employment relation. Three trends are examined in depth: (1) growing inequality in both the profit-making capacities of varied economic sectors & the earning capacities of different types of workers; (2) greater socioeconomic polarization stemming from the organization of firms & labor markets, especially in the service industries, coupled with the "casualization" of the employment relation; & (3) an increase in urban marginality caused by new structural processes of economic growth rather than by abandonment. 4 Tables, 36 References. J. Lindroth