Six in 10 U.S. workers say their jobs fall short of the standards for a “quality” position — one that offers basics such as fair pay, a steady schedule and career growth — according to new research from advocacy group Jobs for the Future.
While government labor statistics track how many Americans are employed and how much they earn, the official data falls short of painting a complete picture of the state of the job market, researchers behind Jobs for the Future’s new The American Job Quality Study said.
A quality job is defined by five indicators, the researchers said:
- Financial well-being, such as fair pay and stable employment
- Workplace culture and safety, meaning the worker is free from discrimination or harassment
- Growth and development opportunities, allowing a worker to build skills and advance their career
- Agency and voice, or the ability to influence decisions that impact one’s job
- Work structure and agency, including a stable, predictable schedule and a manageable workload
By those measures, only 40% of the more than 18,000 workers surveyed by the group said they are employed in quality jobs, while the remaining 60% said their employment is falling short of those standards. For example, 62% of employees said they have unpredictable work schedules, while about one-third said they are struggling financially.
“We recognize that not only has the way we measure the economy not kept up with way work and the economy is changing, but it has never been sufficient in terms of letting us understand what’s going on under hood of economy and across workforce, which is the engine of economic prosperity in the U.S.,” said Molly Blankenship, director at Jobs for the Future.
The group surveyed workers across industries and types of positions, in partnership with Gallup, the Families & Workers Fund, and the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
“We suspected when we started this work that the majority of Americans were not in jobs that were helping them,” Blankenship added. “This date confirms what we suspected, which is that the majority of American workers are not in quality jobs.”
Dimensions of a quality job
Pay is among a job’s most important features because fair wages, stable employment and benefits can help an employee’s sense of financial well-being, according to the study. But only 27% of those surveyed said they are financially comfortable, while nearly 3 in 10 described themselves as “just getting by” or “finding it difficult to get by.”
But a job’s pay alone doesn’t indicate its overall quality. Workers also want to feel safe and respected in their jobs, the study noted.
Providing a harassment-free workplace isn’t just for workers’ benefit: Research from consulting firm McKinsey & Co. shows that a firm’s psychological safety and equitable treatment of workers can improve productivity and benefit business performance.
Opportunities to grow and develop are another pillar of a quality job, yet one in four employees say they have no opportunities for promotion or advancement at work.
Having agency and input into one’s working conditions can help determine a worker’s job satisfaction, according to the study’s authors. But employees report gaps in their influence over key job attributes, with 70% of workers saying they should have more say over their compensation and benefits.
Another 55% say their employers have too much say in how firms use new technology, like AI.
“There is tremendous concern over technology, how it’s being adopted and how it will impact people’s jobs in the future,” Susan Houseman, a senior economist at the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, who worked on the report, told CBS News. “The research indicates that they lack input on these issues.”
The final determinant of job quality — the degree of autonomy a position offers workers — can shape an employee’s daily routine and overall work-life balance. More than six in 10 employees said they lack control over their schedules, while more than half of workers said they often or sometimes work more than scheduled.
Who works in quality jobs?
Men are more likely than women to report holding high-quality jobs, the survey shows.
The youngest employees, between the ages of 18 and 24, are the least likely to hold quality jobs. Race and ethnicity plays a part too, with Asian and White employees more likely than Black, multiracial, Hispanic or Middle Eastern/North African workers to hold high quality jobs, it found.
Broken down by industry, more workers in professional services, financial activities and wholesale trade report holding high-quality jobs, while fewer workers in leisure and hospitality, retail, and warehousing say as much.
Employees who have attained a bachelor’s degree are also more likely to have quality jobs than those with less education, the report found.
