Job sharing is an employment

Employment

Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. An employee may be defined as:- Employee :...

 arrangement where typically two people are retained on a part-time or reduced-time basis to perform a job normally fulfilled by one person working full-time. Compensation

Remuneration

Remuneration is the total compensation that an employee receives in exchange for the service they perform for their employer. Typically, this consists of monetary rewards, also referred to as wage or salary...

 is apportioned between the workers, thus leading to a net reduction in per-employee income. Job sharing should not be confused with the more pejorative term featherbedding

Featherbedding

Featherbedding is the practice of hiring more workers than are needed to perform a given job, or to adopt work procedures which appear pointless, complex and time-consuming merely to employ additional workers. The term "make-work" is sometimes used as a synonym for featherbedding.The term...

, which describes the deliberate retention of excess workers on a payroll.

History

The news media began reporting in earnest on job sharing in the 1970s and 1980s. The practice was most often described as a solution tailored for women, as one Associated Press article summarized, "a compromise between fulltime housework and full-time employment". Job sharing became even more prevalent during the 2000s, as women have succeeded professionally in greater numbers and proportionally seek out alternative work arrangements.

The bank

Bank

A bank is a financial institution that serves as a financial intermediary. The term "bank" may refer to one of several related types of entities:...

ing, insurance

Insurance

In law and economics, insurance is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent, uncertain loss. Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for payment. An insurer is a company selling the...

, teaching

Teacher

A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...

 and library

Library

In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...

 professions are cited as more commonly using job sharing. Some companies that use job sharing include New York Life Insurance Company

New York Life Insurance Company

The New York Life Insurance Company is one of the largest mutual life-insurance companies in the United States, and one of the largest life insurers in the world, with about $287 billion in total assets under management, and more than $15 billion in surplus and AVR...

, Fireman's Fund Insurance Company

Fireman's Fund Insurance Company

Fireman's Fund Insurance Company, based in Novato, Calif., provides personal and commercial property and casualty insurance products in the United States....

, and Walgreens

Walgreens

Walgreen Co. , doing business as Walgreens , is the largest drugstore chain in the United States of America. As of August 31st, the company operates 8,210 locations across all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Founded in Chicago, Illinois in 1901, and has since expanded...

 drugstores.

Advantages and disadvantages

For employees seeking more free time for themselves, job sharing may be a way to take back more control of their personal lives. Employees who job share frequently attribute their decision to "quality of life" issues. Studies have shown that net productivity increases when two people share the same 40-hour job.

However, there is an inherent challenge in making job sharing work for the rest of the company's stakeholders. The "handoff" communication between those sharing the job is essential, and co-workers must adapt to working with, for example, one person being responsible for a task on Monday, but another on Tuesday.

See also

• Work sharing
• Employment rate
• Jobless recovery
  Jobless recovery
  A jobless recovery or jobless growth is an economic phenomon in which a macroeconomy experiences growth while maintaining or decreasing its level of employment...
  
  
• Personnel selection
  Personnel selection
  Personnel selection is the process used to hire individuals. Although the term can apply to all aspects of the process the most common meaning focuses on the selection of workers.-Overview:The professional standards of industrial psychologists require that any selection system be based on a job...
  
  
• Unemployment
  Unemployment
  Unemployment , as defined by the International Labour Organization, occurs when people are without jobs and they have actively sought work within the past four weeks...
  
  
• Work-life balance
  Work-life balance
  Work–life balance is a broad concept including proper prioritizing between "work" on the one hand and "life" on the other. Related, though broader, terms include "lifestyle balance" and "life balance".-History:The work-leisure dichotomy was invented in the mid 1800s...
  
  
• Kurzarbeit
  Kurzarbeit
  Kurzarbeit is a short-term, recession-related program operating in several European countries in which companies have entered into an agreement to avoid laying-off any of their employees by instead reducing the working hours of all or most of their employees, with the government making up some of...