Zara Yaffe

Full-time Full time employment is a job in which a person works a minimum amount of hours which are

indicated by their employer. The FLSA, Fair Labour Standard Act, does not define part-time or full-time employment. Full-time employment hours depend on the company a person is working for, although generally the hours at 9.00am – 5.00pm for 5 days a week, totally 40 hours at the end of each week. To be eligible for benefits, companies require 30-35 or 40 hours per week in order to be defined as ‘full-time’. Some advantages of working full-time include being able to have ‘paid-leave’ on holidays or maternity leave, a guarantee of constant work which cannot be altered at a short notice, a guarantee of monthly or weekly payments which make sure you are able to budget, save or pay bills on time and give you access to minimum notice requirements for things such as termination or redundancy. A full-time job is more convenient as you do not have to travel to 2 or more jobs in a week. You can claim more benefits due to the higher amount of hours you work. Although these are all positives, there are some disadvantages too. These include if a person has been taken on as a full-time worker but don’t turn out to be as good as they claimed to be when taking on, it’s harder to get rid of them after they’ve been given a contract and turn out to be a waste of time. Also, female employees may need 1-2 years maternity leave. Many female employees take their paid maternity leave and as soon as it’s over, they hand it their notice to leave work and never actually had any intention to come back. This is a waste of time and money for the employer. Breaks such as lunch breaks and toilet breaks during the day have to be given to a full-time worker, which do not have to be given to a part-time worker. You can have very long hours which are tiring and draining.

Part-time Part-time employment is a job in which you work less hours than a full-time job. It is considered a part-

time employment if a person works fewer than 30-35 hours per week. The FLSA, Fair Labour Standard Act, does not define part-time or full time employment. Some jobs are considered part-time jobs due to the nature of their work. For example, theme parks are not open during the winter months and so only a handful of workers are kept on during this time for maintenance and office work. As a result of these winter months where workers are unable to work, employees who operate rides, run gaming stands or staff concession stands may be classed as part-time workers due to the lack of work but still technically be employed. This is not their fault, it is just the nature of the job they do. When working part-time there are some advantages. These include the flexibility of the hours as if they were working a full-time job they may not have time for other personal things, such as seeing family or going to the gym. There’s time for other things to do during the day and an employee is not just stuck working all day. Employees that work less than half a have the choice to work mornings, afternoons or evenings in establishments with longer hours. The hours are shorter and so they are less draining and are less likely to tire a person out. For a student, part-time builds character and teaches responsibility for later years in life. For the employer, breaks taken by full-time workers such as holidays, can be covered by staggering the job hours for part-time workers and so hours are not lost. Two part-time workers may provide a wider set of skills than one full-time worker could. There are also some disadvantages that come along with part-time contracts. These include benefits. Part-time workers usually cannot receive pay for holidays or sick leave as a full-time workers would. If there is little work to do, typically, full-time workers will get given the jobs to do first as the employer needs to keep their hours up but a part-time worker doesn’t need a high amount of hours. Part-time workers generally don’t have the same experience as a full-time worker does. Part time workers are more likely to leave the job if they are offered a full-time contract somewhere else.

Freelance A freelance worker is a term commonly used for somebody that is self-employed , hired to work for

different companies for different assignments and not committed to work for a company for the long-term. Freelancing can be used with jobs such as: event management, graphic design, website development, make up artist and photojournalism. The advantages to freelancing are that the hours are flexible and are usually exactly how you want them to be, you can choose with who you work with, in comparison to when someone works for an employer and are made to work with people who they sometimes don’t like. You’re the boss of yourself and therefore you do as you please and you keep all the profits. Disadvantages of working freelance include the possibility of unstableness of the job, there are no reliable or steady workloads. This gives a domino effect onto your earnings and how you pay for things, including bills. Also, every day you don’t work is a day you don’t get paid which means you cannot have holiday pay or sick pay like you would if you were an employee for someone else.

Shift work Shift work is work which doesn’t follow the typical full-time 9.00am-5.00pm times. It can include

morning, afternoon or evening shifts depending on the job or even rotating shifts. Many industries rely heavily on shift work. Recurring periods in which different groups of workers do the same jobs in relay. Most shifts are the same job just done by different people, this is an advantage because no other skills are required from morning to night. There are less working hours, which is a positive for somebody that does shift work due to the fact they then have more relaxation time or time to do things that they enjoy more which means it’s more convenient. Also, if you have children that need looking after during the day as your partner has a day time job, it’s better to do shift work as you can then have a night time job, which is also convenience. Disadvantages include abnormal schedules compared to leading a normal lifestyle, for example, for a night time shift you may have to sleep all day and be awake all night rather than the other way around. Also, there is inequality between the length of shifts. In a hospital, nurses shifts will differ from day time to night, having more nurses on during the day where most incidents take place.

Permanent A Permanent employee works for an employer and is paid directly by that employer. In addition to their

wages, a permanent employee will be entitled to benefits such as holiday pay, sick pay, paid vacations and subsidized health care. In large companies, permanent employees are protected from abrupt job termination by severance policies or formal discipline procedures. Advantages of permanent employment include the fact they’re protected from abrupt job termination and the benefits an employee can receive, and also company-paid insurance for dental, vision, disability, sudden death, health and life insurance. With most companies, family insurance is available too. Employers see a permanent employee as a long term investment and so you might qualify for advancement opportunities that temporary employees don't qualify for. On the other hand, permanent employees are usually always stuck with that one job and so cannot evolve around the business. There is a lack of flexibility within this sector of work.

Temporary Temporary work or temporary employment is when an employee is only expected to work for an

employer for a certain amount of time before leaving. A temporary employee may work full-time or part-time depending on the job. The advantages for temporary work is that there is a possibility for flexible hours so that a worker can complete other things that need to be done in their time. It gives an employee experience for another similar job without having to commit to that one job. Temporary employment can be used as a gateway to get into other jobs within that sector. On the other hand, there is potential for immediate termination without warning as a temporary worker is not generally insanely important to a company. Other companies do not always find temporary work on a CV a sufficient amount of experience to get another similar job. Very few temporary workers gain health benefits or are promoted to a full-time job afterwards.

Voluntary Voluntary work is work or an activity done, in order to benefit someone or something else such as the

community or environment, while you are not being paid. Anyone can volunteer, no matter of age, background, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender, experience, disability or refugee status. The benefits of voluntary work include the experience a voluntary worker will gain from this. It can look good on a CV when applying for a job as it shows commitment and also shows that money is not the most important thing for you. Voluntary work helps a volunteer gain experience, confidence, personal development and a way to learn new skills. If someone volunteers at a larger company and shows willing, they may be offered a job. Volunteering increases your skills with communication and relationships. You are benefiting a person or a community. Disadvantages to voluntary work include the lack of pay and so you are spending your time and not being able to spend it on yourself afterwards. In certain cases, voluntary work can affect and strain your mental, physical and emotional health in a negative way.

Casual Casual work is also sometimes called contingent work. Casual work is always either part-time,

temporary or paid on a piece work basis. Casual work is not generally seen as a career. The advantages of having a casual employee include the fact an employer can call them out whenever necessary and they don’t just have to be there all the time just waiting for work. This is best for an employer whose work is seasonal or has better and worse days. There are no benefit liabilities for casual workers. There is no regular pay and so an employer may have more than one casual workers to call when necessary rather than just one. An employee may use casual work on the side along with another job they have to help pay the bills. Disadvantages of casual work include the quality of the product being produced may be of a lower standard as they cannot really be ‘fired’ as such. The employee may not always be available to work for an employer. Also, child-care is not always available on such short notice for the employee. Lastly, there is a lack of job sophistication due to the fact you may never see the results of your work.

Hourly paid An hourly paid worker, or an hourly employee, is an employee who is paid for each hour they

work. They are required to be paid, at lowest, minimum wage. Hourly workers are entitled overtime pay if they work over 40 hours per week. Depending on the company’s policies, an hourly employee will be entitled to employee benefits including health care, vacation pay and sick pay. The positives of receiving an hourly pay include employers being able to motivate their employees easily as they have to do an hour’s work to actually be paid something and can’t keep slacking, some employees choose to work more when on an hourly pay so that they can earn as much money as possible. Also, if the company does not pay for holidays, some employees may just work through these holidays in order to earn money then too. The disadvantages include the comparison to a salary paid worker, who may do less work for the same hours and be paid more. If the company only works short hours to start with then an hourly employee will have even shorter hours and be paid significantly less.

Piecework; Piecework is work in which you are paid by piece you produce, regardless of how much time each

piece takes. This, for example, includes paparazzi. The advantages of piecework include the flexibility of the hours an employee uses in order to produce pieces. It is completely up to the employee how much time is spent producing each piece as they will generally be paid the same. A disadvantage of piece work could be that if the employee is a slow worker, they will probably produce less and so there will be less work handed in to an employer, which, in turn, lessens the amount of earnings an employee will gain.

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