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While
the number of unemployed workers has held steady at around 14 million in
recent months, another telling measure of frustration in the labor
market—the number of underemployed individuals—rose for a third
consecutive month in September, by almost a half of a million people.
Almost
9.3 million Americans are considered underemployed, defined by the Bureau of
Labor Statistics as working part-time for economic reasons, such as
unfavorable business conditions or seasonal declines in demand.
That's
up from just over 8 million in July, but down from a peak of about 9.5
million in September 2010. In addition, about 2.5 million individuals are
considered "marginally attached to the labor force," meaning they
were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and looked
for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. (They are not counted as
unemployed because they had not looked for a job in the past four weeks prior
to the survey.)
Put
together, almost 26 million Americans are either unemployed, marginally
attached to the labor force, or involuntarily working part-time—a
number experts say is unprecedented.
The
labor force is substantially underutilized relative to what we experienced in
most of the post-World War II period.
From
2003 to 2007, before the latest recession, the number of people working
part-time for economic reasons as a percent of the labor force averaged about
3 percent, or approximately four million people. Over the past 12 months, the
average has been about 6 percent.
To
get a more accurate understanding of the struggles that many Americans face,
that base should be broadened even further. He says it's important to
consider people who are working, but at substandard wages. About 20 percent
of adults have jobs that pay poverty-level wages (the poverty line is
currently $22,500 a year). I'd consider that to be another version of
underemployment—mainly jobs that are just too low-quality. Americans
who fall below the poverty line make less than $10.50 an hour.
The
labor market is just not delivering for Americans what it should be
delivering. The weaknesses are on multiple dimensions—one is just the
quantity of jobs, and the other is the quality of jobs that do exist."
Economists
say the high number of underemployed workers is a sign of the tough economic
times. One of the things that seems to be happening
these days is that companies in an uncertain environment are tending to take
people on part-time instead of full-time because they don't want to make that
full-time commitment. By taking on part-time employees instead of
full-timers, companies aren't forced to pay benefits or bring on employees
for extended periods of time. It's also a lot more difficult to let full-time
workers go.
That's
left millions of Americans trying to make ends meet by working multiple
part-time jobs. There are a lot of people today who are self-employed, and
they go through periods of their life where they're cobbling together various
jobs or projects or consulting assignments or temporary work.
Ted
Schnell of Elgin, Ill., is one of those people. For the first time in his 27
years as a journalist, the now 52-year-old father of five found himself
unemployed in December 2010 after being laid off by Sun-Times Media. Since
January, he's worked part-time for a former colleague who started a local
news site. Schnell has written about his experiences on his blog Laid off
at 51: Seeking joy in change.
For
a few weeks earlier this year, Schnell was able to land two copyediting jobs
at two regional Patch.com sites, but AOL,
which owns Patch, slashed its freelance budget soon after and he lost one of
those positions. "It's miserable in terms of what I'm making,"
Schnell says. In addition, he says he's stuck in a house that's worth
substantially less than his mortgage, and he's had to ask his father to help
with payments. Schnell, like many older underemployed Americans, says he's
worried that he may get passed over by potential employers because of his
age. He remains discouraged. "For every 50 to 100 resumes I send out, I
may get one interview," he says.
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