But recently ,Canadian current affairs magazine Maclean’s offered another possible contributing factor, one that gets a lot of consideration here on WebWorkerDaily. “Could the rise of independent work be partly to blame for the rise of inequality?” the article asks in an article entitled “The End of the Job.”

The rise of the contract worker may also be having a more wide-scale impact than previously realized. A growing gap between rich and poor in countries like Canada has been blamed, in part, on a growing number of poor quality jobs. There’s also mounting evidence to suggest that the rise of the throwaway worker has made recent recessions more painful and longer-lasting. Temp jobs? More like a temporary economy.

“It all amounts to a sea change in corporate attitudes about what constitutes a job in the first place,” concludes the article, noting the death of the job-security-for-loyalty model of previous decades. This move toward more independent and contract work is not only another contributing cause of inequality, but also of the general economic doldrums:

The concern is that all of this impermanence risks creating an economy built not on bedrock, but shifting sand….  Companies see contract employment as the answer to uncertain times, but [professor at the School of Labor Studies at McMaster University Wayne] Lewchuk says it may be a case of the medicine being worse than the disease. People who don’t earn as much money spend less, which isn’t good for the economy. “If people stop buying, then companies stop producing and lay off more workers,” he says. “You get yourself into a quicker and deeper hole. Meanwhile, on the other side of a recession, when you start bringing people back, you’re doing it at lower wages and they don’t have the kind of purchasing oomph necessary to get the economic engine started again.”

Of course, the need for companies to grow leaner, including by utilizing more independent workers, is driven by larger economic forces like globalization and better, cheaper technology, so it’s difficult to argue that independent work itself is the root cause of the problem. Pretty clearly it’s an effect rather than a driver of change. But Maclean’s contention that independent work may be a piece of a destructive cycle that’s both increasing inequality and holding back growth seems worth considering.

How much is the rise of independent work contributing to increased inequality? To economic stagnation?

Image courtesy of Flickr user _PaulS_.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Millennials in the enterprise, part 1: strategies for supporting the new digital workforce
• The Future of Workplaces
• The Future of Work Platforms: An Overview

Good news: The U.S. economy continues to grow (albeit slowly). Last Friday, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released the latest job numbers, estimating that around 94,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy in November. That sounds pretty good until you hear that a year prior, the economy was adding around 168,000 jobs a month.

Bad news: But workers are feeling pessimistic. A monthly survey of worker sentiment in the U.S. shows a downward trend as people increasingly worry about their job security, about employer hiring plans, and about the state of their finances.

Good news: New college grads could face a relatively strong market, as employers project double-digit increases in college hiring for the fifth straight year.

Bad news: Wage increases may hardly beat inflation next year, due to the weakening job market and general economic uncertainty. Doubts about future growth may lead employers to keep a tight rein on labor costs.

Good news: Many companies plan increased recruiting and staffing activities in 2008, according to a survey from JobFox, a web startup that allows you to create an online profile and find jobs that uniquely fit that profile. But the JobFox survey suffers from selection bias, covering only those HR and recruiting professionals interested enough in hiring to actually attend a JobFox seminar.

Bad news: The number of economists predicting recession keeps increasing. Why? The housing bust, related financial market misery, and higher energy prices are putting the kibosh on growth. And that could have painful consequences for the U.S. workforce.

What’s your job outlook for 2008? Are you with the pessimistic workforce? The more optimistic (but penny-pinching) employers? Or the hedging economists (“I see a 50% chance of recession”)?

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce
• Content Farms: The Players, The Benefits, The Risks