ILR Review

In response to the pandemic recession, the 2020 CARES Act expanded eligibility and payments for Unemployment Insurance (UI). UI and the CARES Act may be more salient for people with disabilities than for those without disabilities, given their higher rates of job loss, lower personal and family incomes, and greater obstacles in finding jobs. Using March 2009–2023 CPS data, the authors find that relative to people without disabilities: 1) people with disabilities had higher UI receipt and UI values as a percentage of personal and family incomes; 2) the CARES UI supplement had especially favorable effects on incomes and poverty status for workers with disabilities in 2020; and 3) workers with disabilities who received UI were more likely to be employed the following March, an effect that may have been magnified by the CARES UI supplement. The results suggest that UI may play a salutary role in maintaining the health and job readiness of workers with disabilities.

The growing popularity of e-commerce has made warehouses increasingly vital to retailing. The authors test the proposition that competition for online consumers translates into harsher work conditions inside the warehouses that make e-commerce possible. They use data from three surveys, one providing a national sample of US warehouse workers and two targeting those at Walmart and Amazon, the country’s largest retailers. In the national sample, job quality and worker well-being are lower in warehouses engaged in e-commerce than in traditional warehouses, but this relationship varies across the two firms. The negative effects are most pronounced at Amazon’s e-commerce warehouses, which emphasize speedy delivery. These same effects are less significant at Walmart’s facilities, which aim to offer low prices. Future research should explore whether firms vying for e-commerce business are likely to emulate Amazon, converging on a set of labor practices that diminish work conditions in a growing sector.

This meta-analysis employs 3,574 estimates from 82 studies to assess how working from home (WFH) affected employee productivity before and after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors find a small but positive average effect, driven by gains in hourly productivity and increased hours worked. Pre-pandemic, benefits were concentrated among hybrid workers, while during the pandemic, both hybrid and remote workers benefited. The effect varies by sex, parental status, and global region. The authors detect publication bias in both pre-pandemic studies and those employing data from the pandemic. Using Bayesian model averaging, they correct for publication bias, heterogeneity in research design, data quality, and estimation method, to produce more reliable estimates of the impact of WFH on productivity. Findings suggest WFH can modestly enhance productivity, but outcomes are context dependent. The authors identify key evidence gaps to guide future research and recommend that managers and policymakers adopt flexible, evidence-informed telework strategies.

The authors causally identify the effects of intense survey participation on key labor market outcomes by randomly excluding individuals willing to sign up for a high-intensity survey with a focus on job search and well-being. Using administrative data, they find that, on average, survey participation had no effect on labor market outcomes during the year after signing up. They also demonstrate that an alternative selection-on-observables approach would yield misleading results. These findings underscore the value of experiments in examining effects of survey participation.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly used to streamline hiring procedures, but it raises concerns about transparency and discrimination. The European Union (EU)’s Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA) is the first broad attempt to regulate AI, using a tiered approach based on levels of risk. This article asks whether and to what extent such an approach can adequately protect job applicants’ fundamental rights. Focusing on the EU as a global reference point, it shows how connecting risk management with rights protection can make regulation more effective. The authors argue that involving affected groups through stakeholder-driven standardization, fundamental rights impact assessments, and co-determination can turn compliance from a box-ticking exercise into meaningful accountability. Placing the AIA within the broader contexts of data protection, equality, and product safety law, the article offers practical lessons for jurisdictions worldwide seeking to align technological innovation with fundamental rights protection.

Do employees fare better in firms they partly own? Examining workers’ reviews of their employers on Glassdoor, the authors compare employee satisfaction between firms in which workers own company shares through an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) and conventional firms in which they do not. Focusing on establishments in US manufacturing, the authors find employees report greater satisfaction in firms with ESOPs overall and with specific job attributes such as culture and work–life balance. The satisfaction premium associated with an ESOP is greater when the ESOP is collectively bargained or employees own a larger stake of firm equity. Employee satisfaction thus differs by ownership arrangement.

Global brands’ simultaneous commercial and social compliance requirements may exacerbate supervisor stress and abuse of workers at export factories. Yet, the impacts of supervisors have been underexamined in private regulation. This article draws on the organizational justice literature to analyze the effects of supervisor interpersonal justice (SIJ)—treating subordinates with respect and propriety—on garment workers and how these effects are shaped by labor rights institutions in the workplace and external environment. The authors find that SIJ reduces workers’ turnover intention directly and indirectly through engendering positive affect. The results also suggest that SIJ may have a stronger relationship with positive affect in the presence of worker participation committees (WPCs) and stringent monitoring programs such as the Bangladesh Accord. This article thereby spotlights the relatively neglected role of supervisors in influencing worker well-being and turnover intention in global supply chains.