The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) expanded the definition of a “joint-employer” in 2015 with the goal of providing greater protections to contract workers, but little data exist around the kinds and number of workers affected. AAF’s Director of Labor Policy Ben Gitis sheds some light on questions around the expanded standard in a new study, quantifying both the number of workers affected by the standard and the characteristics of these workers.

He finds:

• The broadened joint employer standard impacts 44 percent of private sector employees or 54.6 million workers, most of whom work in the supply chain;
• While the NLRB assumed that contractors pay low wages, the evidence indicates the opposite: Supply chain workers made on average over 50 percent more than the rest of the private sector in 2013; and
• The supply chain has a high concentration of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics jobs, suggesting that its workers are highly productive and valuable to the U.S. economy.

Read the research here.

Watch a one-minute video explaining the research here.