The Homa Files

Couple of charts – and conflicting interpretations — caught my eye.

First, Wall Street Daily posted their version of an analysis revealing that over 3-in-4 jobs created in 2013 have been part-time jobs.

Their conclusion: “it’s the scariest chart ever”.

Maybe a bit of hyperbole, but certainly worth watching

Here’s another take on the trend …

Jared Bernstein – Biden’s former economist and co-creator of Obamanomics and ObamaCare – wrote in Politico that we shouldn’t worry.

Why?

The percentage of workers who would like to work full-time but can only find part-time work – doubled from about 3% to over 6% during the economic crisis — but is declining from its peak.

Bernstein is technically correct, but …

He doesn’t exactly highlight that the “decline” has been 1/2 percentage point over almost 4 years.

That’s a trend?

And. he conveniently tosses out the increases in the past few months – you know, the run-up to ObamaCare implementation – as statistical noise.

Say what?

Most important, he chooses a convenient denominator – workers.

Implication?

Folks who can’t find full-time and drop out of the labor market – you know, that labor force participation thing – aren’t counted as a problem

Suffice it to say that Bernstein’s analysis leaves me unconvinced.

I say we’re trending to a part-timer economy and that ObamaCare mandates and regs are accelerating the trend.

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This entry was posted on August 12, 2013 at 6:59 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.