Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Mish finally figures out why the part-timing trend caused by ObamaCare doesn't show up in the stats . . . yet


The BLS defines part time as less than 35 hours. Low wage industries had a lot of part-timers working 32 hours.

Under Obamacare, the threshold of part-time jobs is 30 hours. Obama made that change on purpose to force more businesses to offer healthcare. 

Instead, busiunesses [sic] cut hours. It was the hours of the already part-timers that got cut, and that explains why there was no spike in part time employment.

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Average hours worked overall isn't affected much by part-timers getting their hours cut, since the part-time portion of the workforce is so small to begin with, about 18%.

On an average annual basis, however, average hours worked overall haven't made it above the 35 hour full-time threshold since 1984. Larger forces have been at work to drive average hours down, mainly social revolution leading to the addition of large numbers of women to the workforce in the 1970s, but also a free trade revolution leading to offshoring of manufacturing. The libertarian rout of America has been terrible for its workers.

The verdict on what ObamaCare may do to hours is still not in, however, and won't be for many years because so much of its implementation has been delayed by the regime itself, notably the employer mandate. For large firms mandates do not kick in until 2015, and for medium size firms 2016.