Sunday, December 7, 2014

Fortune article perpetuates ignorance about part-time jobs, undercounting them by half








One Laura Lorenzetti misinforms us here:

"[T]he number of part-time jobs, while still elevated compared to pre-recession levels, have remained steadily (or stubbornly, one could argue) around the 14 million mark."

The error is inexcusable because the government goes to great pains in the Household Survey to collect the information on part-time and full-time, and anyone can look it up conveniently at the St. Louis Federal Reserve website. The number is double what she writes, and has hit a record high.

"Employed, usually work part time" is here.

It shows the current level at 28.225 million. Lorenzetti is right the level has been steady . . . but at about 27.436 million on average 2009-2013 inclusive, not 14 million, after taking a big jump up from the 25 million level in 2007.

A subset of these are "part-time for economic reasons", here, presently at 6.85 million, still elevated about 2.5 million from the autumn of 2007 and still tracking the sudden jump up in part-time during the late depression.

"Employed, usually work full time" is here.

Lest you think all is fair and rosy about full time as Ms. Lorenzetti wants you to believe because of Friday's headline jobs number and the full-time up-trend since 2010, the employment situation in the last report shows a decline of 735,000 full time jobs and an increase in part time of 465,000, not-seasonally-adjusted for your holiday cheer.

The gap between the last peak in full-time, in 2007, and now is 3.778 million, even as over the intervening seven years we have added on top of that 15.9 million to the civilian noninstitutional population, that is, people 16 years of age and older who are not in prison, the nut house, retirement homes or the military, who can work but don't.

Ho, ho, ho.