On the job : is long-term employment a thing of the past? /

Much has appeared in the popular press during the past several decades about the dramatic weakening of the employment contract between organizations and workers. This edited volume is one of the few research-based efforts to examine and reconcile the conflicting evidence about job stability and employment security for the entire US labor force. Written by 21 academic researchers in fields such as labor economics, sociology, and employee relations, and edited by a professor of economics who is also a research associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research, this volume yields interesting and useful insights into changes that have occurred in the employment relationship and reasons for these changes. Part 1 analyzes trends that occurred in job stability (duration of jobs) over the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s using empirical data; part 2 examines the issue of job security (likelihood of experiencing involuntary job loss); and part 3 discusses the behavioral changes on the part of employers and workers that underlie the documented changes in job stability and job security. This volume is rather technical in nature and filled with a variety of tables, graphs, charts, etc., and is likely to be of most interest to researchers, graduate students, and professionals with a strong background in labor economics. T. Gutteridge University of Connecticut