I can think of a few things:

- global competition, in that factory workers are competing against the pay/living-standards of those in poorer nations

- no unions

- a preparedness of employees to work for a pittance, towards unobtainable quotas, in unsafe conditions, for dangerously long periods of time.

I'm not sure work gets any more full-time than 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. "Full-time permanent" sounds like semantics and a loophole for companies to exploit.

Companies realized they could avoid a lot of costs by making peoples temps and contractors. Unions won't stop them, government won't stop them. People just need to get a job, so they can't really stand up and say screw you. Oh, and that whole "it's hard to fire people" idea. You keep someone as a temp for a few months and then hire them if they can do the job. THat's not the worst thing in the world if you do it right.

My first job in tech I was a "casual" position. So non-union, and not full time. I was working 40 hours a week, but it didn't really count. No benefits (health, pension, etc...), no vacation, my boss told me one day he was slashing my hours in half.

It sucked. I didn't go to the dentist for about 2 years (that was real fun when I did go back, fortuantely nothing bad happened) because I didn't have coverage. Taking a day off for a trip with my friends meant either losing a days pay or having to make it up (my boss was real big on flex time). When he slashed my hours I went from making decent money to borrowing from my parents for bills.

On the other hand, the union people had health benefits (this was canada, so not as big a deal as the states), pension, vacation, etc... Government job. OT and on-call pay too.

The nice thing was when I got my hours cut I smartened up and applied for a much better job, which I got.

Right to work and Reagan era deregulation.

Temporary and contract workers can fill in holes in the workforce and are easier to get rid of. Also, you push hiring and firing accountability to the contractor.

Lack of faith in the future.

By keeping things in temporary and contracts, you can easily downsize if a big problem happens. And you do not need ot invest in infrastructure that much.

It is a problem of cost of liability and fear of the future.

My guess is it's just there are more people and proportionally fewer jobs. Wealth and power concentrate into big players who have more leverage.

I think one reason we see more entrepreneurs today isn't just because it's easier - many people feel it's the only option. And in the same vein as above, a few VCs hold most of the money and get to dictate terms.