The Service Cycle
How modern-day service work and 19th-century farm labor may be more similar than you realize
In the 19th century, more than 70% of the American labor force worked in agriculture. Today, when we think about that work — the cyclicality of harvest times, how external factors like the weather can create constant uncertainty about one’s income, the physical toll of the labor — we might feel grateful that economic progress has brought 70% of the workforce into service work.
But in the jobs where most Americans work — in retail and foodservice — you will start to notice the persistent presence of the same hardship patterns: cyclicality, demand uncertainty, and hazardous conditions.
Although we have made profound progress in reducing what economists call the ‘disutility’ of work — today’s service jobs are mostly indoors, with biweekly paychecks, and social protections around overtime and minimum wage — by examining the structural similarities between agriculture and service, we can start to understand where we have made progress, and where harvest cycle precarity has endured.
The Dynamics of the Service Cycle
I’ve chosen to focus on retail and hospitality for two reasons: they are the most populous occupations and they are also the…
