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The pandemic’s myriad effects on the U.S. economy will be the subject of research and attention for many years to come. In this report, we delve into some of the pandemic’s impacts by focusing on one question: How did the COVID-19 pandemic affect technology adoption in U.S. warehouses?

We project that the industry likely won’t experience dramatic job loss over the next decade, though many workers may see the content and quality of their jobs shift as technologies are adopted for particular tasks.

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to compare conditions in informal day-labor markets in South Africa and the USA to better understand the nature of worker vulnerabilities in this market, as well as the economic conditions that have contributed to the growth of day labor. The conclusion considers interventions that are underway in the two countries to improve conditions in day-labor markets.Design/methodology/approach– The paper is based on national surveys of day laborers in South Africa and the USA. A random sample of day laborers seeking work at informal hiring sites was undertaken in each country. The paper presents key findings, compares conditions in South Africa and the USA, and analyzes the relationship between economic change, labor-market dynamics, and worker vulnerability.Findings– Day-labor work is characterized by low pay, hazardous conditions on the job, and tremendous income insecurity. The day-labor markets in South Africa and the USA perform somewhat different functions within regional economies. Within South Africa, day labor can be regarded as a survival strategy. The growth of day labor in South Africa over the past decade is a manifestation of a formal labor market that is incapable of absorbing the structurally unemployed. Here, day labor is the employment of last resort, allowing workers to subsist on the fringes of the mainstream economy, but offering few pathways into the formal sector. In the USA, the day labor workforce is a largely undocumented-immigrant workforce. Workers seek work at informal hiring sites, maintaining a tenuous hold on jobs in the construction industry. There is evidence of some mobility into more stable and better paying employment.Practical implications– This paper documents the need for policies and programs to increase employment opportunities for day laborers and to better enforce labor standards in the informal economy.Originality/value– This paper summarizes findings from the only two national surveys of day laborers that have been conducted, and it compares for the first time the dynamic within growing day-labor markets in a developed- and emerging-market context.

As part of ILR Review 's new special series "Novel Technologies at Work," this article introduces a forum composed of five industry studies that examine the drivers and impact of recent and impending technological change. Each of the studies, condensed from longer reports published over the past two years, relies on interviews with sectoral actors and other primary data to determine the relevant technologies confronting workers and managers and the sorts of strategies and policies that will mediate their effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This report exposes a world of work in which the core protections that many Americans take for granted—the right to be paid at least the minimum wage, the right to be paid for overtime hours, the right to take meal breaks, access to workers’ compensation when injured, and the right to advocate for better working conditions—are failing significant numbers of workers. The sheer breadth of the problem, spanning key industries in the economy, as well as its profound impact on workers, entailing significant economic hardship, demands urgent attention.

Analysis of the use of social safety net programs in Illinois by the working poor. This study replicated the research conducted in California for the report The Hidden Public Cost of Low-Wage Work in California.

Day-labor worker centers are labor market intermediaries that target their interventions to underregulated segments of residential construction and allied industries. As sites of rulemaking in the informal economy, worker centers raise standards and enforce worker protections in sectors that lie beyond the reach of government enforcement. In addition to strengthening wage floors, worker centers are now acting as "disaster recovery hubs" that can help local communities following natural disasters. As the economy was shuttered by the COVID-19 pandemic, worker centers pivoted to provide emergency assistance to unemployed workers. This paper assesses these two emerging areas of worker center activity through a survey of disaster-recovery workers in Houston in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey and a national survey of worker centers that administered emergency assistance to immigrant workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. These case studies reveal promising new interventions that could lead to more inclusive forms of workforce development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the restructuring of urban employment regimes through the lens of low-wage, temporary employment and its attendant social division of labor at the urban scale. Focuses on the ways in which a "regime of precarious employment" has been embedded within a regional growth model and describes emerging forms of labor market regulation associated with this employment regime. Contains an appendix on the estimated wages of homeless day laborers. (SM)