Through an intervention with the major U.S. retailer, The Gap, this project tests whether shifting hourly workers to more stable, predictive schedules, and providing them with additional hours result in cost savings and increased productivity for businesses. In the first year of work, Williams and her team made significant progress, including the launch of a pilot program that will test schedule-stabilizing practices to inform the larger intervention.

Labor market institutions differ substantially across developed nations, and the result is a fair amount of variation in the quality of jobs created. This research will shed light on how economic growth translates into high-quality jobs characterized by decent wages and stability, or, in simple terms “good jobs.” The research will provide a detailed exploration of the quantity and quality of American employment growth since 1979 by economic sector, occupation and demographic group. It will conduct similar in-depth work on two other wealthy, large, and diverse countries, Canada and France, as well as a cross-country analysis of approximately 25 countries aimed at the same objective. The research will facilitate more nuanced comparisons between policy progress in the United States versus that of other developed nations.