Those who work usually part-time vaulted 465,000 month over month, not-seasonally-adjusted, in today's Household Survey data in the Employment Situation Summary for November 2014. That puts the metric at an all-time high of 28,225,000, about 100,000 higher than the previous peak reached in the wake of the late economic depression.
Meanwhile, those who work usually full-time dropped 735,000 from October to November.
Full-time usually peaks in the summer and part-time usually peaks in the winter, so the data coheres with past experience, except the new high in part-time is a little worrisome.
Voluntary part-time is up big month over month (536,000) while involuntary part-time is down (74,000). Is that a sign of acquiescence to a new normal of part-time work? Admittedly, involuntary part-time is still 2.5 million higher than it was in the autumn of 2007, but it has fallen 2 million between 2011 and 2014 even as today there are 2.5 million more full-time jobs than there were a year ago.
Full-time remains 3.8 million under the 2007 peak.
Meanwhile multiple job holding is down 224,000 month over month, and the total employed is actually down 270,000, as is the total number unemployed, down 50,000 not-seasonally-adjusted.
It looks as if the big jump of 321,000 in total nonfarm from the Establishment Survey is a phenomenon of part-time. Whether these part-time jobs become an enduring phenomenon in the form of permanent jobs won't be clear until after the new year.
The unemployment rate at 5.8% remains where it is as those not in the labor force continues ever upward, this time 536,000 higher from October to November. The metric hovers near the all-time high of 92.5 million reached in April. People dropping out means fewer people to count as unemployed.
The civilian labor force shrank in size 319,000 from October to November.
