[NJFAC] more than one-third of U.S. workers are "disposable"

Concierges, adjunct professors, potato chip tasters: US employers are relying more and more on ‘disposable’ workers Paul Osterman August 11, 2026

When I leave my Boston condo every day, I say good morning to the concierge, who works for a contracting company providing staff to residential buildings. When I conduct an interview in a nearby building, the people who clean that office at night are contractors. The person who serves me my lunch sandwich is a part-timer with no career prospects in that job.

When my best intentions to eat well are for naught and I gorge on Doritos, I remember that the tasters PepsiCo hires to test the chips’ addictiveness are contractors.

These are all examples of what I call “disposable jobs.” People who have them work at an employer’s site, but their employer makes no commitment to them regarding career prospects or job security. My research shows that employers treat more than 1 in 3 U.S. workers as disposable. That comes to just under 57 million full- or part-time workers out of the nation’s workforce of 162 million.

I am a labor economist. In my new book, “Disposable Workers: The Transformation of Employment,” I explain why this is happening, what forms it takes, how common it is, what the consequences are for people and for society, and what can be done about it.....

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June Zaccone
National Jobs for All Network
http://www.njfac.org

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[NJFAC] Necessary new jobs decline with shrinking labor force

The labor market could become so backward that the economy will have to shed jobs to keep unemployment steady Jason Ma, Fortune, 8/1/26

...a report from Dallas Fed economists earlier this year found that the breakeven rate of employment growth, or the number of net new jobs needed each month to keep the unemployment rate steady, actually went slightly negative during the summer and fall of 2025.

That means payrolls can be stagnant or shrink, and the unemployment rate will hold steady instead climb. Such a phenomenon may not be an anomaly but instead become the norm.

On Thursday, Oxford Economics estimated the breakeven rate is currently about 50,000 new jobs per month, down from more than 200,000 in 2022 and 2023, when immigration surged.

But with Trump returning to the White House, restrictive immigration policies have slashed the supply of foreign-born labor over the past year and a half. Separately, labor force participation has fallen as the population ages.

As a result, the breakeven rate will fall to zero next year and turn slightly negative in 2028, according to economists Matthew Martin and Bernard Yaros.....

AND MORE ON THE LABOR MARKET:

We Are Mildly Horrified by This AI Startup That Coerced People Into Getting Tattoos of Its Logo in Exchange for a Job Interview  "If you're reaching out to us to apply for a job, you might want to take notes."  Joe Wilkins, Futurisn, Aug 1, 2026

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June Zaccone
National Jobs for All Network
http://www.njfac.org

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