The labor periphery splits into career-stalled full-timers and precariously casual workers

Evidence

The periphery encompasses two rather different sub-groups. The first consists of ‘full-time employees with skills that are readily available in the labour market, such as clerical, secretarial, routine and lesser skilled manual work.’ With less access to career opportunities, this group tends to be characterized by high labour turnover ‘which makes work force reductions relatively easy by natural wastage.’ The second peripheral group ‘provides even greater numerical flexibility and includes part-timers, casuals, fixed term contract staff, temporaries, sub-contractors and public subsidy trainees, with even less job security than the first peripheral group.’ — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 888

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishes the two peripheral labor sub-groups that define flexible accumulation’s employment structure.
• XREF: connects to: Population growth outpaces job growth, leaving millions in precarious work; Lean platform workers are highly educated yet forced by unemployment into gig work — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 71; Uneven economic development fragments workers into distinct segmented groups — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 671 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Population growth outpaces job growth, leaving millions in precarious work #expands (0.78)