GROWING USE OF PART-TIMERS TOUGHEST ON WOMEN

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, April 4, 1993                   TAG: 9304010048
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: F-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BY CAROL KLEIMAN KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
GROWING USE OF PART-TIMERS TOUGHEST ON WOMEN
The contingency work force - temporary, part-time, subcontracted and independent contract workers - is growing among employers who want to downsize their work forces and have flexibility in hiring.
Employers who staff their businesses with contingency workers also want to save money on salaries, benefits, unemployment compensation, training and career advancement.
The result is an increasingly two-tiered work force, in which contingent employees often work side by side with full-time workers who have higher compensation as well as benefits such as health coverage, vacation and overtime pay.
And women, the majority of contingency workers, end up at the lower end of the job scale.
While some do contingency work by choice, most do it because they can't find full-time jobs.
Most of the women in the contingency work force are clerical workers in female-dominated industries such as services and retail trade that traditionally pay even full-time workers low wages.
And many female contingency workers hold two or more jobs - none with benefits - to piece together enough money to live on.
It gets worse as women grow older: Women of all ages comprise two-thirds of all part-time workers, but midlife and older women are disproportionately represented among contingent workers, according to Women's Initiative, the women's advocacy arm of the American Association of Retired Persons based in Washington.
"Women 45 and older make up only 13 percent of the U.S. work force, but they are 20 percent of the contingency work force," said Maxine Forman, manager of Women's Initiative.
"When you're a contingency worker and you're laid off, you seldom qualify for unemployment benefits, you get low hourly wages, lack health insurance and are less likely to receive pension or Social Security benefits."
Contingency work is not new, Forman says, but "today it's more pervasive and pernicious. Where once it might have been a solution to problems of women with family responsibilities, now it's seen as a solution for employers' problems. But if contingency work continues to grow, it should benefit not only employers but employees, too."
Some of the facts on the contingent work force, as reported by AARP:

Temporary workers are the fastest-growing group of contingency workers in the United States.

Between 125,000 and 200,000 people work for employee-leasing firms.

Contingent workers are less likely than full-time workers to be union members, which hurts their earnings and restricts access to benefits and promotions.

One-eighth of part-time female workers between ages 55 and 64 want full-time jobs but can't find them.

Fewer than 25 percent of temporary employees work for firms that offer health benefits.

Contingent work contributes to women's lower lifetime earnings relative to men's: The average monthly Social Security payment to retired female workers in 1991 was $520; for men, it was $682.
New policies about contingency practices are needed, according to Women's Initiative, which recommends benefits to "maintain an adequate standard of living during their work life and to earn retirement income for their later years. . . . Improving contingent workers' access to training also should be considered."
Contingency work "sends a negative message to people first entering the work force and is a problem with long-term repercussions in terms of the potential poverty of women who work in that kind of environment," said Anne Ladky, executive director of Women Employed, a Chicago-based organization dedicated to economic advancement for women.
"How can women become self-sufficient as contingency workers?" asked Ladky, whose group also does job training. "First, the growth of this kind of employment demands the creation of universal health care. And, to the extent that both employer and employees want flexibility, there should be a restructuring of part-time jobs to make them more valuable and to reward workers accordingly."

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB