Unemployment is low only because 'involuntary' part-time work is high

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Date: February 5, 2019 at 4:32:09 PM GMT+9
> To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Unemployment is low only because 'involuntary' part-time work is high
> Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com
>
> [Note:  This item comes from friend David Rosenthal.  DLH]
>
> Unemployment is low only because 'involuntary' part-time work is high
> By Jim Edwards
> Jan 27 2019
> <https://www.businessinsider.com/unemployment-vs-involuntary-part-time-work-underemployment-2019-1>
>
>    • Unemployment is at record lows in both the UK and the US.
>    • But "involuntary" part-time work is at least 40% higher in both countries than it was 10 years ago.
>    • The structure of the labour market has fundamentally changed, and what we used to think of as "unemployment" has 
> been replaced by mass part-time work, much of it unwanted.
>    • "Gig economy" jobs are to blame, according to Rob Valletta of the San Francisco Fed. 
>
> Britain just notched up yet another record-breaking low for unemployment, according to the government. Unemployment 
> stayed at just 4%, while the number of people with jobs rose to 32.54 million, or 75.8%, "the highest since 
> comparable estimates began in 1971," according to the UK's Office for National Statistics. 
>
> But once again, the monthly jobs tally eclipsed how that miracle was achieved. "Headline" unemployment is only at a 
> record low because of a 42% increase in the number of people who are in "involuntary" part-time work. 
>
> "Involuntary" means they're only working part-time because they cannot get a full-time job. 
>
> In March 2006, at the peak of the economic boom that preceded the great financial crisis, involuntary part-time work 
> was at a low of 620,000. It rose to a peak after the 2008 crisis. But today, after 10 years of economic growth, it 
> has settled back to 881,000 — an increase of 42% over the period, according to the ONS. 
>
> This is not good news. 
>
> Four percent unemployment is technically "full employment." Anyone who wants a job should be able to get one. But 
> 881,000 workers need full-time jobs — the kind that get people out of poverty — and those jobs are not available. 
>
> The average part-time employee in Britain works for about 16 hours a week, less than half the 40 hours that are 
> generally considered to constitute "full-time" work, according to the ONS. 
>
> So, if "involuntary" part-timers were reclassified as "unemployed" — on the logic that they are unemployed for a 
> majority of their week — then the UK unemployment rate would be 7%, based on a back-of-the-envelope calculation using 
> numbers provided by the ONS. The total number of "unemployed" people would be 2.2 million, not 1.4 million. 
>
> This isn't just a thought experiment. 
>
> The labour market in the UK and the US (they're similar) has structurally changed since the early 2000s in a way that 
> is poorly understood. 
>
> Here is the situation in America.
>
> [snip]
>
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