Some companies even began providing benefits such as pensions and vacation time. With the Depression, however, those benefits were dropped and employee wages and security greatly decreased. Then in the 1930s the argument was made that higher wages for workers were good for the American economy because turning workers into successful consumers would help American business. The argument prevailed, and so did the unions. From a membership of barely two million in 1932, the rolls exploded to ten million by 1938.
Business faces a similar situation today.
Other financial indicators are up as well, and have been for a number of years. Yet employees are feeling more and more insecure about their jobs and their futures. Faced with global competition, increasingly sophisticated automation, a compressed business cycle, and demands from shareholders to increase profits, business leaders say they must downsize and move to a more contingent workforce. Layoffs that reached a high of two thousand a day in the first quarter of 1994 continue. Forty-four percent of some 203 Fortune 500 chief executives polled last year said they expected to employ more contingent workers in the next five years.