The so called economic recovery is following the long term trend of the deterioration in the American job market. Each recession provides the opportunity for the corporate elite to squeeze harder. A major feature of the recession of the early 90s was the shifting of regular full time jobs to temporary contract employment. That has continued ever since. We are now seeing this trend intensified.
Most 2013 job growth is in part-time work, survey suggests
A closer look at one of the two measures the Labor Department uses to gauge employment suggests that part-time work accounted for almost all the job growth that’s been reported over the past six months.
“Over the last six months, of the net job creation, 97 percent of that is part-time work,” said Keith Hall, a senior researcher at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center. “That is really remarkable.”
Hall is no ordinary academic. He ran the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the agency that puts out the monthly jobs report, from 2008 to 2012. Over the past six months, he said, the Household Survey shows 963,000 more people reporting that they were employed, and 936,000 of them reported they’re in part-time jobs.
The U3 rate of unemployment has slowly edged down. In part that is a result of people working at low paying part time jobs. It also results from people being classified as "no longer seeking employment".
Retail is one of the few sectors showing significant expansion. These are jobs that are particularly suited to part time employment to staff for peak periods. Part time work not only means less take home pay but also no benefits. One speculation is that the implementation of the ACA with its increased requirements to provide health insurance is providing an incentive to shift jobs to part time status.
At this point about 19% of US jobs are part time. However, if the present trend continues that portion is certainly going to increase.