The Rapidly Changing Labor Force

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Your father worked the same job for 40 years. Then he retired. With a pension.

You know you won’t follow in his footsteps. If you’re like most workers today, there’ll be just one constant in your work life: change.

According to figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, average workers today will change jobs anywhere from seven to 10 times during their careers. That’s a lot of change right there. But this is only one way that the U.S. labor force differs from your father’s.

And it might not be the most significant one.

Job Hopping

Before the Great Recession hit, many younger workers believed that the only way to get ahead in their careers was to hop from job to job. It was the only way, they said, to earn promotions at a rapid pace.

Today, of course, much of the job hopping taking place isn’t the result of upwardly mobile careerists seeking more lucrative positions; instead it’s a direct result of the economy.

The national unemployment rate, as of late September, still stood at 9.6 percent. That equals way too many people either out of work or underemployed. These folks have had no choice but to jump from one job to the next.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, workers stayed with their employers an average of 4.1 years in 2008. That number has undoubtedly changed at least slightly since 2008, but wherever it stands, you can bet it’s a far cry from the 40 years that many earlier workers logged with their companies.

There’s some boredom there, of course, toiling away at the same job year after year. But there’s security, too. That’s something that today’s workers know little about. If there’s one thing the Great Recession has taught employees, it’s that the corporations and companies that pay them will drop them in an instant if such a move makes financial sense.

Big Workplace Changes

But what other changes have hit the labor force since the 1950s? Click on the infographic attached to this story to find out. Many of the changes have been positive ones: There are more women and minorities in the workforce today. Some are negative: unemployment is up, and job security is down.

One big change is the gender makeup of the workforce. In 1950, 70.3 percent of all workers in the U.S. labor force were men. That has changed dramatically over the years: Today, men make up just 53 percent of the labor force. For those who are math-challenged, that means that women make up the additional 47 percent.

Unfortunately, women haven’t made as much progress when it comes to wages. Men still tend to earn more. For instance, one study shows that in 1987, just under 20 percent of wives earned more than their husbands did. In 2007, that number did rise, to more than 26 percent. But you’d think it would rise more than it actually did.

The size of the workforce in the United States has changed fairly dramatically, too. From 1988 to 2008, the size of the workforce has risen from 121.7 million employees to 166.9 million. The rate of growth each year, though, is slowing.

You can attribute the slowing growth of the U.S. labor force to many factors: unemployment, changing technology, outsourcing. But whatever the reason, this is a trend that you can expect to see continue.

Here’s the question for you: What workforce do you prefer? Your father’s, stable but certainly more boring, or yours, exciting but an emotional rollercoaster?

The answer to that question might depend upon where you are in your life. If you’re raising a family, you might prefer stable but boring. If you’re just getting started in the workforce and the only person relying on your salary is you, you might go with exciting but unstable.