The recent Census report showed the earnings ratio between men and women declined for the second consecutive year. Women experienced significantly slower earnings growth compared to men, who saw faster increases in 2024. 

At first this seems hard to explain, because wage gains at the bottom end have been remarkable over the past years. We might expect a shrinking gender difference in earnings. While traditional gender roles and labor divisions influence differences between men and women, one key factor to consider is their working time. 

Workers in service industries often face issues with involuntary part-time or just-in-time scheduling. Many of them are women and women of color. Although wage growth at the lower end has been noticeable over the past year, average weekly hours in the leisure and hospitality sector, including hotels and restaurants, declined by approximately 1.9 percent, compared to the 2018-2019 level.

In addition to the quantitative aspects, it is important to consider how much control workers have over their schedules. Research shows that irregular work hours increase job turnover and earnings disparities among groups. A median wage worker would trade 4 percent to 11 percent of their earnings for a job with stable scheduling. There is good reason to believe that erratic work hours may be linked to the gender difference in median earnings we saw in the recent report.

Below is the figure showing work hour volatility by occupation. These estimates include only wage workers aged 19 and older who have not reduced their hours or stopped working for reasons such as taking a vacation/holiday, going to school, or experiencing chronic health problems. The focus is on changes in work hours caused by employers. A higher instability index (shown here on the y-axis) means workers had more unpredictable work hours.

Figure 1

Erratic schedules remain much less common among those in public administration, management, and other professional positions. Over the past 10 years, service sector employees have continued to face significant instability in their working hours from week to week and month to month. The gap in scheduling stability between these workers and other hourly employees has remained consistent, and even widened in the second half of 2023 and most of 2024. 

However, after a sharp increase in 2023, volatility in working hours began to decline steadily in late 2024 and into 2025. While current levels have not yet returned to the lows of 2018-2019, they are approaching that benchmark. The longer term trend will become clearer as additional data are collected over the next year. In contrast, workers in blue collar roles, including construction, transportation, warehousing, and manufacturing, experienced a notable increase in month-to-month schedule changes in 2025. 

Figure 2

Throughout most of the period, women of color consistently reported the highest work-hour volatility, while white men tended to remain the most stable (Figure 2). Nevertheless, following a pronounced peak in mid-2020, both workers of color and women overall experienced a significant decline in scheduling volatility — by about one third — over the past few years. Rates have remained below their pandemic-era highs. 

After 2022, all women workers display a modest but noticeable upward trend, in contrast to the flat or slightly declining pattern for men, leading to a more noticeable gap between men and women during that period. However, as of 2025 this gap had narrowed again, with some signs of a reversal in their relative positions. Overall, across the entire period from 2015 to late 2024, all four groups show similar broad movements. Interestingly, around 2024–2025, the trend has partly shifted, with white men rising above some other groups, indicating a partial reversal of the earlier pattern.

The problem of scheduling volatility was highlighted in a recent letter from Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) to Amazon chief Jeff Bezos. The lawmakers were critical of the company’s workplace practices, many of which had been documented by the Shift Project. Their surveys found that many workers at major  companies, including Amazon, are required to use an algorithm-based scheduling system. This can make their work hours more variable, which disrupts their nonwork life. With tariffs and rising prices affecting demand, employers may try to cut costs by shifting more risk onto workers. 

As shown here, the recent increase in frequent work schedule instability is being seen beyond the traditional hospitality sector. These practices are increasingly prevalent in blue collar jobs, including warehousing and construction, a labor development that deserves more attention.