AILSA CHANG, HOST:
All week we've been looking at a striking trend in the American economy - the rise of the contract worker. This emerging workforce is primarily male. And according to an NPR/Marist poll, 65 percent of such workers are men. Young contract workers and not just men start their careers in a very different place than their parents did, one that's more flexible but a lot more unpredictable, as NPR's Uri Berliner reports.
URI BERLINER, BYLINE: Alex Belfiori has a big day coming up later this week about his job and his future. He'll walk into a conference room with his boss.
ALEX BELFIORI: At that point, we're going to sit down and have a discussion about it. I was told initially when I took this job that there were no guarantees for me getting hired on full-time. A lot of it has to do with if there's money in the budget or not.
BERLINER: For the past eight months, Belfiori has been taking care of tech needs at the DICK'S Sporting Goods headquarters near Pittsburgh. He likes the job pretty well. It's hands-on, making sure that projectors, TVs, computers and audio equipment are all working properly - pays decent, about $20 an hour - but not great. So when he sits down with his boss, he hopes to find out that he's nailed a staff position, a job that's more challenging and financially rewarding.
BELFIORI: I am nervous about it, but at the same time, I'm always looking for new jobs and keeping my options open. And there are a lot of tech jobs in Pittsburgh, so I'm not afraid to move something else if the timing's right and if it pays more.
BERLINER: The 28-year-old Belfiori is like a lot of millennial workers.
BELFIORI: I'm actually on my fifth job since graduating college.
BERLINER: He earns enough to pay the rent, make his car and student loan payments and put up to $50 a month into a retirement account. Belfiori's experience mirrors what other contract workers told us in the NPR/Marist poll. There's plenty of work available, but careers with a solid future, something to build a life around - that's much more elusive.
ANTHONY CARNEVALE: Yes, it is the way of the world now.
BERLINER: That's Anthony Carnevale, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce.
CARNEVALE: Everybody - the employers and the workers - have to be more selfish in this economy. If you're an employer, you don't want responsibility for people. You want contract employees so that when business is good and production is up, you use those people.
BERLINER: When production goes down, Carnevale says, contract workers are shown the door.
CARNEVALE: They live in a world in which when times are good, they do very well as contractors - in fact, do better than line workers and have more independence and more entrepreneurial opportunities. But when business goes down, they are the first fired.
BERLINER: This is a volatile, new world, and it mostly affects men. Nearly two-thirds of contract workers in the NPR/Marist poll are male. That's a much bigger proportion than in the overall workforce. Researchers don't know exactly why this is happening. One reason seems to be that contract jobs are more common in male-dominated fields like construction, finance and IT. Alan Krueger, an economist at Princeton, says discrimination against women may also play a role.
ALAN KRUEGER: Traditional workers are covered by the Civil Rights Act which prohibits discrimination based on race, sex and other factors. Independent contractors are not covered by the Civil Rights Act.
BERLINER: That's just one of many areas where contractors don't enjoy the same protections or benefits as people in traditional jobs. Contract workers don't get unemployment pay or worker's comp if they're hurt on the job. If they do get benefits like health care or a retirement plan, they're skimpy. Georgetown's Carnevale says contract workers have to build their own safety net.
CARNEVALE: You are on your own, and the convenient and tempting assumption to believe that your employer - that the boss will take care of you is not something the boss has the power to do even if he or she wants to.
BERLINER: Alex Belfiori, the 28-year-old contract worker - he's taking a couple of steps to build some financial security, one that's very practical and another that's riskier, more adventurous.
BELFIORI: I help fix computers on the side, and I'm also invested in cryptocurrency.
BERLINER: Cryptocurrency like bitcoin. In June, he took the plunge.
BELFIORI: So I was looking at that and decided to put a couple thousand into it from my savings.
BERLINER: Since then, prices have bounced around a lot. Belfiori is still ahead on his investment. He's not counting on cryptocurrency to achieve the American dream or fund his retirement. Maybe it'll pay for a nice vacation. Uri Berliner, NPR News.