- A growing number of Americans have given up full-time working weeks
- More than 16% of the working population now works less than 35 hours per week
- More than 22 million part-time workers do it by choice
Americans are voluntarily turning away from full-time work and 40-hour weeks in droves, according to new data from the Department of Labor.
In fact, the vast majority of the 1.2 million part-time jobs that were added in December and January were made up of people who decided they’d rather not work a 40-hour week.
There are 22.1 million part-time workers in the United States who take their jobs by choice. That’s six times the number of part-time workers who are there due to a lack of full-time work – 4.1 million – reports the Wall Street Journal.
Labor data shows that 16.3% of the 160 working Americans are part-time employees, working less than 35 hours a week.
A Maine bookseller, Katie Pinard, who said her staff work almost entirely part-time, told the Journal: “25 hours is the new 35. For many of our employees, 25 hours, maybe 30 , that’s the maximum they have the capacity for.’
One such person, Ernie Park, 32, spent a decade working in tech before quitting to spend more time with loved ones.
He started a family farm in New Jersey while mentoring foster kids, he explained in the WSJ report.
While another, Diane Windemuller, 53, told the newspaper that the uncertainty of working in her role as human resources manager in Boulder, Colorado, during the Covid-19 pandemic had left her exhausted. Now she works 15-20 hours a week in various consulting roles.
“Part-time work for non-economic reasons is growing faster than expected and seems to have stabilized at a higher level. I don’t see it going back,’ Penn State Abington economist Lonnie Golden told the Journal.
Golden said on average, part-time workers earn about 20% less than their full-time counterparts and are generally not eligible for health benefits and other bonuses.
Both Park and Windemuller said their spouses are still employed full-time, which leaves them financially stable. Park said he also saved money while working full time.
Park also has health insurance through his wife’s work. He said he earned about 25% of his wife’s salary. Initially, after leaving his full-time position, he did part-time consulting work.
‘It was perfect. I was able to keep my skills sharp but also have time for the things that are more important to me,” he told the Wall Street Journal. Park has set up a newsletter called Part Time Tech that tells workers how to transition to part-time work.
Windemuller said she was fired from her job and began her shift to part-time work by taking full time off.
“My adrenaline was high and my interactions weren’t as graceful and friendly as they could have been because I had that edge on me all the time. It was a fight or flight state all the time,’ Windemuller said of his previous work.
Now working 15-20 hours a week for a technology consulting company, Windemuller said, “It’s a healthier balance for me right now.”
Golden went on to say that the living conditions of Americans have changed, with many content to stay with their parents, which has contributed to the rise of part-time workers.
In August 2022, U.S. employers posted a record number of part-time and flextime job openings. The number of job postings referring to part-time and flexible hours jumped 26% year-over-year, with some positions seeing triple-digit percentage increases.
The most common part-time roles with job openings in the United States are retail salespersons, fast food workers, waiters, customer service representatives, janitors, and cashiers.
However, there is a rapid growth in part-time opportunities in sectors such as education and health.
The WSJ reports that the average rate for a substitute teacher is $150 a day, up 16% from recent years.
Nicola Soares, president of Kelly Education, a company that places substitute teachers, told the Journal that many of her clients are women who can work in education while their own children are in school.
Katie Pinard, who runs Elements, a bookstore and cafe, told the Wall Street Journal that if someone came in and wanted to work full-time, she would ask, “Can you start right away?”
“I wish I had more anchors and more consistency,” Pinard said.
In January, the government said employers had created 517,000 jobs and the unemployment rate had fallen to 3.4%, the lowest level since 1969.
The report added to the picture of a resilient US labor market, with low unemployment, relatively few layoffs and plenty of job openings.
While beneficial for workers, employers’ constant demand for labor has also helped to accelerate wage growth and contributed to high inflation.
President Joe Biden called the jobs report “very good news” and claimed his Republican critics were wrong in their warnings of continued high inflation and a coming recession and layoffs.
“Our plan is working,” Biden said, “thanks to the courage and determination of the American worker.”
“This is a hot labor market,” said Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management. It would be difficult, she suggested, “to see the Fed stop raising rates and entertaining rate cut ideas when such explosive economic news is coming.”