Annette
Bernhardt

Director, Technology and Work Program

annette.bernhardt@berkeley.edu

Program Area

Technology & Work

Area of Expertise

Labor market research
New technologies and low-wage work
Living wage and labor standards policies
Enforcement of employment and labor laws
The gig economy
Immigrants and work
Low-wage service industries

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About Annette

Annette Bernhardt (she/her) is director of the Technology and Work Program at the UC Berkeley Labor Center, and a senior researcher at the UC Berkeley Institute for Research on Labor and Employment. She recently was visiting professor in the UC Berkeley Sociology Department, as well as a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. Previously she was policy co-director of the National Employment Law Project, where she coordinated policy analysis and research on living wage standards, enforcement of workers’ rights, and accountable development. A leading scholar of low-wage work, Dr. Bernhardt has helped develop and analyze innovative policy responses to economic restructuring in the United States.

She was one of the principal investigators of the landmark study Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers, which documented high rates of minimum wage, overtime, and other workplace violations in the low-wage labor market. She has also been a leader in collaborating with immigrant worker centers and unions to develop innovative models of community-based research. Her current research focuses on domestic outsourcing, the gig economy, and the impact of new technologies on low-wage work. Dr. Bernhardt’s books include the co-edited The Gloves-Off Economy: Workplace Standards at the Bottom of America’s Labor Market. She has published widely in journals such as the American Journal of Sociology, the American Sociological Review, and the Journal of Labor Economics, among others. Dr. Bernhardt received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago in 1993.