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[FOR INTERNAL REVIEW] Paul Osterman - The Disposable Worker: How Firms Learned to Stop Investing in People
The postwar employment contract, characterized by stable jobs, career ladders, wages that rose with productivity, didn't dissolve overnight. Firms chipped away at it deliberately, and the result is a labor market organized around workers who were never meant to stay.
Topics covered:
Contractors, freelancers, and marginal workers: the three categories of disposable work
Why using staffing firms drives wages down
The McKinsey statistic that says the quiet part out loud: 95% of a firm's value comes from 5% of its employees
Why "at will" employment is a spectrum, not a switch, and why disposable…
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