answer:There’s another issue happening at big box stores and corporate chains. To keep labor costs low, managers use forecasting software to write schedules. So if the software says you can only have 20 man-hours on a shift (or whatever), that’s the schedule. The upshot is that employees have short shifts that are constantly changing. You could have a late-night closing shift followed by an early opening shift, or work on only Monday and Tuesday. This makes it almost impossible for employees to have a second job, go to school, or arrange childcare. On top of that, managers will often schedule employees just below the limit for benefits. So if you have to work 30 hours to get benefits, your schedule will be 28 hours. There are also stories out of places like walmart and target where employees are cheated out of overtime or asked to work off the clock. Like if you work 45 hours this week, they record 5 hours on next week’s pay period. America is shifting away from a production economy and toward a service economy. Most of the new jobs being created are low-paying, entry-level service jobs. I think it’s this century’s version of Gilded Era factory work.