Audio Conference: “The Changing Face of Labor on Labor Day”

Media Advisory

Audio Conference: “The Changing Face of Labor on Labor Day”

  • More than one quarter of employees plan self-employment or start-up businesses in the future
  • Employees in effective workplaces are three times less likely than those who aren’t to seek a new job with a different employer in the coming year

Hosted by Ellen Galinsky , President, Families and Work Institute; Moderated by Cathy Healy, Center for Workforce Preparation, U.S. Chamber of Commerce

What: The one-hour audio conference will explore “the changing face of labor” with employers from across the country telling their own stories of how they started, transformed and manage their businesses to make work “work” better for themselves, their companies and their employees.

This audio conference will explore:

  • why employees left larger and more established companies to found their own businesses;
  • what challenges employers face in start-up and established companies in making work “work” better for themselves and their employees;
  • how they address these challenges through innovative strategies in the workplace.

Featured stories were collected in chamber of commerce forums held in Brooklyn, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Durham, Long Beach, Providence, and Salt Lake City as part of a “listening” tour of the When Work Works project, an initiative of the Families and Work Institute, the Center for Workforce Preparation, and the Center for Emerging Futures, with funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

When: Monday, August 23, 2004, from 12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m. EDT

Why: The stories of these employers reflect some emerging national trends:

  • There is a widespread concern among employers about the consequences of not having work "work,” which the Families and Work Institute has been able to measure, using nationally representative data of the U.S. Workforce.  We found that employees in effective workplaces (using an average of ratings of six specific aspects of workplace effectiveness) are almost three times less likely than those in ineffective workplaces to be making a deliberate effort to seek a new job with a new employer in the coming year (23 percent vs. 62 percent).
  • One of the most significant recent changes in the workforce is the increase in businesses that are owned by women. The Center for Women’s Business Research estimates that women-owned firms (50 percent or greater ownership share) are growing at close to twice the rate of all privately held firms (17 percent vs. 9 percent). These firms have sales of $2.46 trillion and employ 19.1 million employees nationwide.
  • It seems likely that this trend toward creating or changing one’s business will continue: 26 percent of the current wage and salaried workforce “plans to be self-employed or have their own business in the future.”

Media inquiries: Kevin Stewart , Families and Work Institute (973-580-5597 or kstewart@familiesandwork.org) or Kelly Sakai , Families and Work Institute (212-268-8635 or ksakai@familiesandwork.org).