July 2024 | Hourly Work Index 🕓
United States
The "Hourly Work Index" by Deputy provides a detailed look into the state of hourly work across various industries in the United States. Deputy's unique data on timesheets, hours worked, average shift lengths, and other relevant metrics provides real-time insights on the jobs market, the economy, industry challenges, business confidence, and trends impacting demographics within the hourly worker community.
Healthcare 🧑⚕️
Avg Shifts worked | MoM ShiftsWorked | Avg Hours worked | MoM Hours Worked | Average Shift Length |
9.67 🔽 | 🔼 2.97% | 🔼 80.26 | 🔼 5.07% | 🔼 7.79 |
New Hires | Turnover | Predictable Scheduling | Average Shift-pay | Average Hourly Pay |
-3.35% 🔽 | -16.42% 🔽 | 🔼 34.72 | 🔼 $143.10 | 🔼 $19.65 |
Despite having the most predictable scheduling among parent industries, there is a severe divide between sub-sectors of Healthcare when it comes to schedule predictability. Hourly workers in Animal Health led the pack in July, with a whopping 53.77 days (approaching 2 months), on average, between the last schedule update and shift start, followed by Dental workers who had an average of 51.12 days to plan. Workers at Care Facilities had the least amount of time to plan, averaging a mere 17.29 days between last schedule update and shift start. Childcare and Community Centers didn’t fare much better with 19.61 days to plan ahead. This equates to a more than 5 week difference in time to plan between Animal Health workers and Care Facility workers.
Gen X’ers worked longer shifts than their counterparts in the Healthcare sector, clocking in an average shift length of 8.06 hours, while Millennials worked an average of an 8 hour shift, Baby Boomers worked a 7.9 hour shift on average and Gen Z worked 7.73 hours on average per shift.
Hospitality 🧑🍳
Avg Shifts worked | MoM Shifts Worked | Avg Hours worked | MoM Hours Worked | Average Shift Length |
24.82 🔽 | 🔼 3.33% | 🔼 147.66 | 🔼 3.91% | 6.5 🔽 |
New Hires | Turnover | Predictable Scheduling | Average Shift-pay | Average Hourly Pay |
-9.63% 🔽 | -2.10% 🔽 | 16.48 🔽 | $79.00 🔽 | 🔼 $15.84 |
Gen Z hourly workers worked nearly double-time in the Hospitality sector in July, clocking an average of 313.85 hours over the month. That equates to a 78 hour workweek. Gen Z’s older counterparts worked significantly less in this field in July, with Millennials working an average of 46.65 hours over the month, Gen X working 33.63 hours on average and Boomers working an average of 17.03 hours in the month of July. Gen Z is also earning significantly less per hour in the sector than their older counterparts, earning an average of $15.35/hr — nearly $4 less per hour than older workers in July (Gen X earned $19.06/hr, Boomers earned $19.14/hr and Millennials earned $19.87/hr).
Shift workers in the Hospitality parent industry had the least time to plan between the last schedule update and shift start at an average of 16.48 days in July. In fact, the sub-sector with the most time to plan (Sit-Down Restaurants at 16.7 days, on average) is still less than the average of every other parent industry (Healthcare had 34.72 days, Services had 21.81 days and Retail had 18.9 days, on average). The Hospitality sub-sector with the least amount of time to plan between last schedule update and shift start was Fast Food/Cashier Restaurants, averaging 14.38 days.
Retail 🧑💻
Avg Shifts worked | MoM Shifts Worked | Avg Hours worked | MoM Hours Worked | Average Shift Length |
11.20 🔽 | 🔼 2.37% | 88.55 🔽 | 🔼 3.36% | 🔼 7.24 |
New Hires | Turnover | Predictable Scheduling | Average Shift-pay | Average Hourly Pay |
-11.66% 🔽 | -0.69% 🔽 | 🔼 18.9 | $120.82 🔽 | $17.29 🔽 |
Workers at Gyms are the lowest paid-per-hour shift workers in the Retail parent industry in July, earning an average of $13.38 per hour. They also worked the least amount of hours, among Retail workers, only logging an average of 33.16 hours in the month of July.
Gen Z’ers and Boomers earned less per hour in the Retail sector in July, compared to their middle-aged counterparts. Gen Z earned $16.46/hr, on average, and Boomers earned $16.54/hr, while Gen X earned $18.24/hr and Millennials came in highest at $18.54/hr. At the same time, Gen Z and Boomers had more time to plan for an upcoming shift than their middle-aged counterparts. While Boomers had an average of 17.38 days and Gen Z had 17.07 days between the last schedule update and shift start, Millennials had only 13.49 days and Gen X had 14.25 days.
Services 🧑🔧
Avg Shifts worked | MoM Shifts Worked | Avg Hours worked | MoM Hours Worked | Average Shift Length |
19.21 🔽 | 🔼 2.21% | 🔼 139.41 | 🔼 4.80% | 7.36 🔽 |
New Hires | Turnover | Predictable Scheduling | Average Shift-pay | Average Hourly Pay |
-12.36% 🔽 | -11.82% 🔽 | 🔼 21.81 | $124.47 🔽 | $17.50 🔽 |
In July, shift workers in Delivery & Postal services earned the least per hour among Services workers, earning $10.55/hr, compared to the next lowest hourly wage of $11.88/hr, earned by workers in Call Centers.
Gen X earned the most-per-hour in the Services sector this July, coming in at $19.55/hr. Boomers were at a close second, earning $19.33/hr, while their younger counterparts earned a lower hourly rate, with Millennials at $17.99/hr and Gen Z at $15.88/hr.
Hourly Jobs Market Spotlight 💡
Across sectors, hourly workers worked more shifts and more hours in July compared to June. Yet, due to decreasing average hourly pay in Retail and Services, and decreasing shift length in Hospitality, only Healthcare workers saw an increase in average shift pay this month. Healthcare saw the largest increase in hours worked (5.07%), followed by Services (4.80%), Hospitality (3.91%) and Retail bringing up the rear (3.36%). Hospitality had the largest increase in shifts worked (3.33%) compared to June, followed by Healthcare (2.97%), Retail (2.37%) and Services (2.21%). This may indicate a leveling-out from last month’s significant drop in new hires, as many businesses work to balance their staffing needs and available employee resources.
While working more hours and more shifts on average, the ability for shift workers to plan ahead becomes increasingly important. Healthcare continues to lead the pack in predictable scheduling, with an average of 34.72 days between the last schedule update and shift start, Services had 21.81 days on average, followed by Retail (18.9 days) and Hospitality (16.48 days). Hospitality was the only parent industry that did worse on schedule predictability in July, compared to June.
Economic Impact 🇺🇸
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Commentary 💬
"The July data from Deputy’s Hourly Work Index gives us a clear picture of the current state of hourly work in the U.S., especially in healthcare and hospitality. We're seeing more hours and shifts being worked, which is a positive sign. However, in hospitality, younger workers are clocking in more hours but getting paid less than their older colleagues. They also have less time to plan their schedules, which makes things even harder for them. This data highlights the need for fair pay and better scheduling to ensure these workers are treated well. It’s important that businesses and policymakers focus on supporting hourly workers, who play a crucial role in keeping our economy going.."
About Deputy
Deputy is the global people platform for hourly work. Its intuitive software strengthens employer-employee connections, streamlines compliance obligations, and revolutionizes how hourly workers and businesses operate together, creating thriving workplaces. Over 330,000 workplaces use Deputy to create better work-life experiences for 1.4 million scheduled workers globally. Visit Deputy, or find us on Twitter, Facebook, the App Store, or Google Play for more information.
The Data
The “Hourly Work Index” is produced by Deputy, the global people platform for hourly work, utilizing anonymised and aggregated Deputy customer and user data. This data has been normalized to account for seasonality and demand of workforce fluctuations throughout the week (e.g. weekday vs. weekends).
2.62 million shifts and 18.98 million hours from 268,255 hourly workers in the United States were analyzed to create this report.
