The Real Effects of Fair Workweek Laws on Work Schedules: Evidence from Los Angeles

Fair Workweek Laws (FWLs) aim to improve the predictability and stability of employee work schedules. They do so by requiring employers to provide work schedules with sufficient advance notice or to compensate workers when such notice is not provided. Despite the growing number of U.S. jurisdictions with active FWLs (currently more than 10), there is little empirical evidence of their effects on work schedules. This paper examines the impact of Los Angeles’s FWL on the predictability and stability of work schedules, using administrative data from seven independent retail chains operating in Los Angeles, CA. We find that Los Angeles’s FWL increased the predictability of work schedules: shift-level advance notice increased by 8.6% in the log specification, and the levels specification implies an increase of 1.31 days per shift. Furthermore, the share of shifts scheduled with less than 14 days’ notice decreased from 49.9% to 34.8%. However, we find that the law did not improve several commonly used measures of schedule stability, such as consistency in shift start times and hours worked. Our analysis also does not find evidence to support several commonly raised concerns about FWLs, including reduced work hours, increased employee turnover, reduced hiring, increased use of part-time workers, and reduced store operating hours. Overall, our results suggest that although FWLs can lead to some improvements in schedule predictability without these commonly raised negative consequences, they may have limited potential to increase schedule stability.

This paper was accepted by Karan Girotra, operations management.

Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2024.05622.