More People Pushed Into Part-Time Work Force

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Source: WSJ

As the softening economy begins to push more people into part-time jobs in place of full-time work, the part-time world is getting tougher.

For many, the nature of part-time work is changing. More and more people are working part-time jobs for economic reasons, rather than by choice. That figure rose by 100,000 in February for the second month in a row, the Labor Department reported yesterday, bringing it to 4.79 million -- compared to 4.13 million a year ago, and the highest since 1993.

More people also are holding multiple part-time jobs out of economic need. In 2007, an average of 1.8 million people held two jobs for that reason, the highest since the government began regularly tracking the statistic in 1994. The growth was largely fueled by women, who overtook men to make up the majority of the multiple-job market for the first time, according to a labor bureau study.

A big factor is the fast-growing retail sector, which has felt more pressure to use part-timers since many supermarket and big-box chains started staying open for extended hours in the 1980s and 1990s. The stores' most recent wrinkle is the adoption of computerized scheduling systems, which try to boost service and trim costs by matching staff size to customer traffic, hour by hour. Growth of part-time staff in the sector has been slightly outpacing that of full-time staff since 2000, according to Labor Department figures.

WSJ

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Needing a part-time job as a basic economic necessity has been the norm for Americans since the mid to late 90s. The mantra of a ‘great economy’ simply did not allow the ‘part-time job’ growth to surface and receive attention.