US – Participation and work schedules

With a working population in the range of 144 million, one tends to think of a rush of workers to their place of employment in the morning and a rush to home in the evening. But many parts of the work force do not fully participate in that diurnal work flow. Figure 6-2 provides fundamental information on the structure of the work force’s daily comings and goings. First, 72 percent—about 102 million workers—work on what can be labeled a “regular” daytime work schedule. The others—approximately 42 million—have work sched- ules that typically would take them out of the usual traffic stream with regular evening or night-shift schedules or with irregular schedules of rotating or split-shift nature.

Moreover, only about 94 million of the 102 million workers with regular daytime schedules work at an away-from-home work site each day. The balance either work at home (5.5 million) or are defined as mixed workers (2.7 million), those who work a sched- ule of at least one full day at home but also work at a regular away-from-home work site.1 The Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) of the U.S. Census Bureau cites that more than 116 million of the 142 million in their 2010 survey consider their schedule “involuntary” because the schedule was a condition of the job or they could not find any other job. This means that 25 million workers worked schedules they cite as “voluntary”— that is, selecting their schedule because it suited their preferences or needs for family care, school schedules, or better pay.

These variations on the standard work theme are further compounded by workers’ hourly schedules. The U.S. workforce worked the hourly schedule distribution shown in Figure 6-3, with 52 percent working a “regular” eight-hour day; an additional 23 percent work more than eight hours, and the remaining quarter work fewer. Those who work at work sites—that is, an away-from-home location—have a somewhat greater eight-hour share (54 percent). Those who work only at home have a tendency for more erratic hours, with only 32 percent indicating they worked a “regular” eight-hour day. Those with mixed work arrangements, at home and at an away-from-home site, tend to have the heaviest schedules, with more than 40 percent indicating schedules of more than eight hours
per day.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at Job Dynamics  in  AASHTO – Commuting in America – Home.