[5] Houseman began her career as a professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy and a visiting scholar at the Brookings Institution.
[6] Her research focuses on temporary help employment, outsourcing, and the way that these working arrangements affect workers' compensation and official measures of productivity.
[7] Her research has shown that extraordinary growth in the computer industry—not automation in other industries—is responsible for all of the unusual productivity growth in the manufacturing sector,[8] and that declining manufacturing employment in the US is due more to trade than to automation.
[9] During the Covid-19 recession, Houseman was a frequent commentator on layoffs and unemployment insurance programs.
[10][11] She also advocated the use of voluntary workshare programs to maintain relationships between workers and employers.