The Change in the Social Contract Between the Employer and Employee

Over the past decade, Americans have been impacted by significant changes in the workplace. The research problem addressed in this book was whether there was a resulting change in the social contract and a lessoning of commitment by employers to employees during this period. Significant changes in the social contract may have a critical impact on employees, financial security and important health benefits. The results in this book showed that compared to 1994, in 2004 more employees worked part time than full time, and un-certainty about the amount of available work hours increased drama-tically, leading to a growing lack of financial security. Outsourcing continued to rise substantially, increasing by almost six fold from 2000-2004 and there had been a further loss of health benefits for many employees. Key recommendations in this book demonstrated the importance of creating different forms of healthcare to meet the current needs of employees, and devising different ways of structuring work that fosters stable and longer term employment for employees. This would ensure that the health and personal lives of American workers would not continue on the pathway of a downward spiral.