"Mean and Variance"

Working in America: A Blueprint for the New Labor Market, by Paul Osterman, Thomas A. Kochan, Richard Locke, and Michael J. Piore, is discussed. The book makes sense of the current labor market and proposes policy reforms for the future. In this book and elsewhere, attention has been focused on the proliferation of jobs outside internal labor markets; these are the source of much of the labor market's new diversity. Yet there are fewer of these "nonstandard" jobs than is commonly realized, and, despite the flexibility they afford, many of the workers holding such jobs regard them as inferior to regular, full-time employment. The book remains a reliable and incisive guide to the shape of things to come.