NYT: A Hidden Toll on Employment: Cut to Part Time

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/31/business/economy/31jobs.html?_r=1&partner=EXCITE&ei=5043&oref=slogin

By PETER S. GOODMAN
Published: July 31, 2008

The number of Americans who have seen their full-time jobs chopped to part time because of weak business has swelled to more than 3.7 million — the largest figure since the government began tracking such data more than half a century ago.

Kevin Moloney for The New York Times


Ali and Ron Temple lost more than half their monthly income when Mr. Temple’s full-time job was scaled back.

The loss of pay has become a primary source of pain for millions of American families, reinforcing the downturn gripping the economy. Paychecks are shrinking just as home prices plunge and gas prices soar, furthering the austerity across the nation.

“I either stop eating, or stop using anything I can,” said Marvin L. Zinn, a clerk at a Walgreens drugstore in St. Joseph, Mich., who has seen his take-home pay drop to about $550 every two weeks from about $650, as his weekly hours have dropped to 37.5 from 44 in recent months.

Mr. Zinn has run up nearly $2,000 in credit card debt to buy food. He has put off dental work. He no longer attends church, he said, “because I can’t afford to drive.”

On the surface, the job market is weak but hardly desperate. Layoffs remain less frequent than in many economic downturns, and the unemployment rate is a relatively modest 5.5 percent. But that figure masks the strains of those who are losing hours or working part time because they cannot find full-time work — a stealth force that is eroding American spending power.

All told, people the government classifies as working part time involuntarily — predominantly those who have lost hours or cannot find full-time work — swelled to 5.3 million last month, a jump of greater than 1 million over the last year.

FULL story at link.

[Historic NY]

1. More of the Republican train wreck called *.

[LiberalEsto]

2. The workers at our Giant supermarkets in the Dc area

have been cut to 6 hour shifts and short workweeks for the past few years so they can't get benefits.