Most 2013 job growth is in part-time work, survey suggests
By Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Washington Bureau
And 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.
"That is a really high number for a six-month period," Hall said. "I'm not sure that has ever happened over six months before."....
Hall speculated that the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, shorthanded as Obamacare, might be resulting in employers shifting workers to part-time status to avoid coming health care obligations.
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