Companies slashing worker hours "because of Obamacare"

[bhikkhu]

30. A lot of data there, but no definite trend

I know its a common meme that full-time workers are being bumped down to part-time in droves, but the charts you posted (if one actually reads them) shows that its not especially true.

The first one shows part-time worker's number more or less stable from 2009-2013, a period which added 5 million jobs or so to the total workforce.

The second chart shows the 5 million jobs added (the vast majority of which were not part-time, based on chart 1).

The fourth shows that retail work continues to be more or less part time, as it has been for a long time. Big-box stores cut the floor out from under retail first, then internet sales. Retail has been struggling for two decades, and it has little to do with the new healthcare law.

...if you read the BLS summary for August (the most recent one still), "part-time for economic reasons" declined by 334,000 in one month, while 169,000 jobs were added to the totals. Retail added 44k jobs. The average work week for all employees on private non-farm payrolls increased by 0.1 hour in August to 34.5 hours....everything consistent with a slowly improving economy, and the expected transitioning of part time workers to full time. An "accelerating trend" in the other direction is simply not supported by the facts, as much as many would like it to be.