This week's newsletter is the second in a series of three guest posts on job quality in sustainable food systems by Sophie Kelmenson, a postdoc fellow in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (You can read the first installment here.) Sophie reached out to us in 2019 with a research proposal that would use data from GFJ's archive of job postings to study labor demand and job quality in the field of alternative food systems. You can read Sophie's full paper in the Journal of Agriculture and Human Values here.
Please note that all of this data was gathered between the years of 2010 and 2019, before GFJ implemented a $15 / hour minimum wage for all jobs.
It is also important for us to note that all data was used anonymously and in good faith - there was no exchange of money or goods in any aspect of Sophie's research and publication.
LAST WEEK...
I described the types of jobs - and the employers offering them - that are working to build alternative food systems. But one of the major questions driving my research was: are the jobs good? In other words, are they contributing to the exploitative aspects of existing systems, or are they forging a new path?
In order to answer those questions, I had to build an understanding of what markers apply to job quality.
At a minimum, good jobs provide living wages (compensation to cover housing, food, healthcare, taxes, and other required expenses without undue burden), benefits (including paid sick days and vacation), safe working conditions, training, job security, opportunities for advancement, and the ability to collectively bargain. Not all of these aspects can be effectively measured in a job advertisement, based on the information supplied.
I compared openings on Good Food Jobs to 1) the county living wage and 2) compensation levels for the same occupation in other industries (see more about these methods in the full paper).
In my research, I found...
Less than 50% of entry-level roles offered living wages (see note above about the timeline of jobs posted based on GFJ's wage requirements).
- Overall, 67% of job openings with wage data offered hourly living wages
- Annually, 57% of jobs offered living wages: 73% of full-time jobs and 5% of part-time.
- Openings advertised 401K contributions 17% of the time, while 19% advertised paid time off, and 21% advertised health insurance.
Overall, Good Food Jobs' openings offered less competitive compensation than their local labor market counterparts in other industries.
- Of the 14 most common occupations, just 1 was consistently offered competitive and living wages: Chefs and Head Cooks. Of the remaining 13 occupations, 12 offered competitive wages. A good sign!
- Unfortunately, these common and competitive occupations rarely offered living wages, including Food Preparation Workers, Fast Food and Counter Workers, Short Order Cooks, and Retail Salespeople.
- 34 occupations offered uncompetitive wages, including most or all occupations in Farming, Business and Financial Operations, Community and Social Service, and Management. This signifies equity challenges for important roles in alternative food systems.
- 51 occupations offered wages that were no different than other industries, indicating that their wages are not based on working within alternative food systems. This included many mid-level food service roles.
Alternative food systems struggle to offer attractive career paths.
- Within food preparation and serving roles, wages for entry-level and senior positions were competitive, suggesting sector specific wage increases for workers across the career ladder - an optimistic sign. Unfortunately, entry and mid-level roles in this sector were not offered living wages, creating a barrier for early stage workers.
- Within sales, wages were competitive in entry-level roles, while their supervisors were offered wages consistent with other industries - another potential positive. However, managers were offered uncompetitive wages. This suggests alternative food systems might lose talented sales workers to other industries over time.
- All managerial positions were offered uncompetitive wages, and several were not offered living wages. This finding suggests a lack of financial sustainability for workers in the long term, especially those supporting multiple family members.
All of this points to the possibility that poor wages and limited career paths may dis-incentivize job seekers from contributing their talents to develop better food systems. With little financial upside, a more privileged, and likely White, subset of the population will be more able to participate in alternative food systems development. Biased participation risks exacerbating a playing field that is already disadvantaging low-wealth individuals and/or Black, Indigenous, or other people of color.
See you next week for a final discussion on strategies for improving job quality...
To learn more about Sophie's research, read her paper, "Between the farm and the fork: job quality in sustainable food systems" or reach out to her via email, where she would be happy to discuss this or related projects that you might have brewing.
Yours in food justice,
Dor + Tay
original artwork by Candace Caston, using an AI image generated by DALL-E
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