The Homa Files

There were high fives last Friday when the BLS reported a level unemployment rate and – based on the employer survey– 195,000 new jobs.

The numbers from the household survey were less rosy … a gain of 120k jobs.

Still, positive job growth.

Here’s the rub …

The new jobs (and more) were part-time jobs … up 360k on the population survey.

In fact, full-time jobs declined in June by 240k jobs.

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Let’s put those numbers in a historical context …

Full-time jobs are still down about 5.5 million from early 2008.

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Part-time jobs, though, are up by 3.4 million positions since early 2008.

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Bottom line: Employers continue to keep their workforces flexible … part-timers are easier to pare back if the economy stalls.

And, many employers are reporting that they’re work-sharing full-timers into part-timers in preparation for ObamaCare’s employer mandates.

Though they’ve been delayed for a year, they still hang over employer’s heads.

As the WSJ says, “we’re re-mixing to a part-time America”.

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This entry was posted on July 8, 2013 at 6:56 am and is filed under BLS, Employment - Jobs, Part-time workers, Unemployment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.