Why America Might be Stuck With More Unhappy Part-Timers

Why America Might be Stuck With More Unhappy Part-Timers
Working too few hours? You may have met a new economic reality.


(Bloomberg) The share of workers who wish they were working more but can't land full-time jobs might remain elevated even as the economy improves, new research suggests.

The share of the labor force working part-time for economic reasons, rather than by choice, shot up to a peak of more than 6 percent in the wake of the 2007-09 recession, from around 3 percent prior to the downturn.

While a weak economy increased the share of involuntary part-timers by about 2 percentage points between 2006 and 2010 — the year the rate peaked — long-term changes in the economy have also played a role. Structural shifts in the labor market might have swelled the group by an extra percentage point over the same period, according to research released Monday by Rob Valletta and Catherine van der List at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. .................(more)

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-08/why-america-might-be-stuck-with-more-unhappy-part-timers