Flexible Workplace Solutions for Low-Wage Hourly Workers

To illustrate:
● Nearly half of low-wage hourly workers experience one or more of the major forms of rigid
scheduling practices — lack of control in scheduling of work hours including overtime and extra
work hours, inability to choose starting and quitting times, or inability to decide when to take
breaks. 22
● As one measure of unpredictability, between 20 and 30% of low-wage hourly workers are regularly
required to work overtime or extra hours with little or no notice. Of full-time workers in jobs
requiring standard hours who are regularly required to work overtime or extra hours with little or no
notice, 58% reported that they cannot refuse overtime or extra work hours without some form of
backlash.
● Instability in work hours often has signifi cant consequences for low-wage workers as fl uctuations in
work hours lead to fl uctuations in income. More than one in four part-time low-wage hourly workers
(on both standard and nonstandard schedules) experience reduction of work hours or layoffs when
work is slow, and one in fi ve full-time workers in jobs requiring nonstandard schedules experience
this same problem. One in two part-time workers in a job requiring a standard schedule and almost
one in four part-time workers in a job requiring a nonstandard schedule would prefer to be working
full-time.
Our report is one of the fi rst to highlight the extent to which these three different types of scheduling
problems — rigidity, unpredictability, and instability — pervade the low-wage hourly workforce. We
note, however, that the data on which we rely is incomplete. There is no national data available
that will allow us to state conclusively the extent to which low-wage hourly workers experience
unpredictable scheduling and instability in their work hours, or the consequences of these types of
employer practices on employees and their families. Given the scope of the scheduling challenges
we have uncovered in this report with the existing data, we can say with certainty that the problems
of rigidity, unpredictability, and instability impact substantial numbers of low-wage workers on
standard and nonstandard work schedules.
Only three months before this report was issued, the United States Department of Labor’s (U.S.
DOL) Women’s Bureau hosted a national meeting on the fl exibility needs of hourly workers that
featured businesses’ best practices, workers’ perspectives, and existing research. 23 The success
of some employers’ scheduling innovations in these areas to date suggests that broader-scale
implementation of these strategies would be incredibly useful both to low-wage workers and to their
employers.
These public-sector and private-sector efforts could have far-reaching implications for low-wage
workers and their families, not only for those in the workforce now, but also for those who are
currently out of the workforce and might have an easier time reentering if fl exibility were a more
common feature of low-wage jobs. All of this activity presents an unparalleled opportunity for
advocates for low-wage hourly workers and for the businesses that employ them to ensure that their
fl exibility needs are included in the current policy conversation on fl exibility.
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