This unique, cross-disciplinary collection of essays explores claims that an insecure workforce imposes wide economic and social costs through lower rates of skill formation, reduced consumer confidence and family instability.

For the past two decades employment in Britain has been marked by a search for greater flexibility in the availability and use of labour. In recent years, however, there has been mounting concern at the costs of this trend and an appreciation that the consequence of a flexible labour market may be an insecure workforce, vulnerable to exploitation.

Work-related learning can be broadly seen to be concerned with all forms of education and training closely related to the daily work of (new) employees, and is increasingly playing a central role in the lives of individuals, groups or teams and the agenda’s of organizations. However, as this area of study becomes more prominent, debates have opened about the nature of the field, as well as about its configurations and effects. For example, some authors have a broad definition of WRL and define it as learning for work, at work and through work, ranging from formal, through semi-structured to informal learning. Others prefer to use the concept of WRL mainly in connection to informal, incidental learning processes during work, leading to competent workplace learners. Formal and informal learning are distinguished from each other with respect to the level of intention (implicit/non-intentional/incidental versus deliberative/intentional/structured). Another point of discussion originates from the different ‘theoretical backgrounds’ of the authors: the ‘learning theorists’ versus the ‘organizational theorists’. The first group is mainly interested in the question of how learning comes about; the second group is predominantly interested in the search for factors affecting learning.

Winner of the William G. Bowen Prize Named a "Triumph" of 2018 by New York Times Book Critics Shortlisted for the 800-CEO-READ Business Book Award The untold history of the surprising origins of the "gig economy"--how deliberate decisions made by consultants and CEOs in the 50s and 60s upended the stability of the workplace and the lives of millions of working men and women in postwar America. Over the last fifty years, job security has cratered as the institutions that insulated us from volatility have been swept aside by a fervent belief in the market. Now every working person in America today asks the same question: how secure is my job? In Temp, Louis Hyman explains how we got to this precarious position and traces the real origins of the gig economy: it was created not by accident, but by choice through a series of deliberate decisions by consultants and CEOs--long before the digital revolution. Uber is not the cause of insecurity and inequality in our country, and neither is the rest of the gig economy. The answer to our growing problems goes deeper than apps, further back than outsourcing and downsizing, and contests the most essential assumptions we have about how our businesses should work. As we make choices about the future, we need to understand our past.

Table of Contents List of illustrations List of contributors Acknowledgements Introduction 1 1 More pressure, less protection 8 2 Flexibility and the reorganisation of work 39 3 The prevalence and redistribution of job insecurity and work intensification 61 4 Disappearing pathways and the struggle for a fair day's pay 77 5 Job insecurity and work intensification: the effects on health and well-being 92 6 The intensification of everyday life 112 7 The organisational costs of job insecurity and work intensification 137 8 Stress intervention: what can managers do? 154 9 What can governments do? 172 Appendices 185 Notes 189 References 206 Index 222.

This volume presents original theory and research on precarious work in various parts of the world, identifying its social, political and economic origins, its manifestations in the USA, Europe, Asia, and the Global South, and its consequences for personal and family life.

This book sets out to explore the emerging consequences of the so called '4th Industrial Revolution for the organisation of work and welfare.