'Marginal workers are employees who have no career prospects at their organizations,' says MIT Professor Emeritus Paul Osterman, author of a new book on the subject. 'They are employees of the organization for whom they work, but the organization does not intend to keep them, and these workers are much less attached to any career ladder.' As such, marginal workers are part of a larger trend in U.S. employment. According to Osterman's analysis, 35 percent of U.S. workers are either marginal employees, freelancers, contractors, or gig employees finding work on online platforms like ridesharing services. 'That's a big number,' says Osterman, who is the Nanyang Technological University Professor Emeritus at the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he is also a professor emeritus of work and organization studies. 'That's over 55 million people in the American work force.' Osterman scrutinizes this employment landscape in his new book, 'Disposable Workers: The Transformation of...
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