A flexible market features the expansion of the service industry—health care, banking, and real estate being some notable examples. It also features the need to serve individual consumer preferences, which often leads to a reliance on cheap, disposable labor and quick, high-volume sales in order to recoup the costs of producing so many niche products. order to recoup the costs of producing so many niche products.

The trend of corporate downsizing has meant that the average worker must scramble for a job, with many working two to three part-time positions. For businesses, downsizing actually has a negative effect, as it makes them less able to compete due to fewer employees and a decline in innovation. The main beneficiary of downsizing is the corporate CEO, who typically oversees the downsizing; this is one of the reasons for the once-growing gap between what average workers earn and what the CEO earns. Since the economic recession, the wage gap has lessened somewhat.