ABSTRACT
Employment in fast food restaurants works differently: Indicative of jobs in the postindustrial labor market, the fast food workforce is constantly changing because the work is temporary and contingent. In general, fast food restaurants' spatial strategies of labor recruitment combined with job seekers' preferences to work outside their own neighborhoods reinforce and shape the way network recruitment operates. Employers, then, tend to rely foremost on: word of mouth and employee referrals when recruiting fast food workers. The traditional ethnic enterprise typically features long-term employment and extensive work hours; it helps sustain monopoly niches for long periods, often throughout a generation. Employees also want to avoid the ridicule and harassment rooted in the social stigma surrounding fast food work. The distancing of home and work occurs for several reasons: fast food establishments prefer to hire employees who live outside the neighborhood.
