It is surprising that over the past several years very little has been said in the popular media about the fact that America is slowly (but surely) transforming from a full-time to part-time employed society. And while much has been said about the temporary and now past impact of census hiring, and government jobs on the workforce, there are still few mentions in mainstream media that since the depression started in December 2007, America has lost 10.5 million full time jobs, offset by a 2.8 million increase in part time jobs.
Yep, this has been my life since Feb. 2008.
The result of the healthcare legislation will only be to accelerate this change.
There are lots of ways to understand these data, but the first chart, in which the two lines are not on the same scale, is spin. Instead, how ’bout we say the numbers went from 16.9% part-time to 19.9% part-time (that is, 3% more of the workforce were part-timers). Meanwhile, the total workforce decreased by 5.3% — and the full-time workforce decreased by 8.7%. So would not someone trying to be objective say, instead, that the data show us becoming an *unemployed* workforce? Is that not the real explanation here, rather than some sort of demographic/economic shift that will persist towards part-time work? In other words, if (as we all hope) employment eventually increases, would one not expect to see the balance between full-time and part-time shift back towards full-time?