Jim Devine wrote: >Doug writes: >>Most studies of turnover/instability/tenure I've seen for the U.S. show no >>significant increase from the 1970s. I know this is counterintuitive, and >>it pisses people off when I say it sometimes, but it seems to be true. What >>may have happened is that some instability has crept up the social ladder, >>making middle managers vulnerable to the instability that blue/pink collar >>workers have long known, which attracts more attention than in the past. >>Also, behind the flattish average tenure figures, men are falling but women >>are rising. > >This disaggregation is crucial: I read what's happening as the gradual end >(and sometimes rapid demise) of the primary labor market jobs, which >offered some job security, and the spread of secondary labor market type >jobs, which don't. Because middle-aged white males hogged the primary-type >jobs that existed in the core and unionized sectors of the US economy, they >(or rather, people of their demographic category) are the ones who have >suffered the most from increased instability of job tenure. Women and >"minorities" traditionally had secondary-type jobs and typically had little >in the way of security. Thus, there's been a convergence of job experience >between the old insiders and the old outsiders in the labor-power market. This exaggerates the security of the old days, and treats rising female tenure as a secondary consideration to falling male, which you don't mean to do, do you? Doug
