The number of part-time jobs has increased dramatically in the U.S. since June while the number of full-time jobs in that same time frame has taken a hit, signaling a concerning trend in the job market toward part-time workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Since June, the total number of workers in full-time jobs, defined as jobs working more than 35 hours per week, has declined by 670,000, while the number of part-time workers has risen by over a million, according to August employment data from the BLS.
The job numbers for August continued to show a cooling labor market, with the U.S. adding 187,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in August while the unemployment rate shot up to 3.8% from 3.5% in July.
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“This is very concerning because employers tend to shift away from full-time jobs and towards part-time jobs as we head into recession,” E.J. Antoni, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Similarly, manufacturing has essentially added no jobs this year, up less than 0.1 percent compared to January, and that sector tends to lead the rest of the job market as we transition from job gains to stalling and then to layoffs.”
Manufacturing added only 16,000 jobs in August after losing 4,000 jobs in July, according to the BLS. The number of manufacturing jobs since January has only increased by 12,000, with there being 12,985,000 jobs in January and 12,997,000 jobs in August.
“These numbers are not surprising, however, as many surveys have been indicating that the labor market and broader economy are slowing down,” Antoni told the DCNF. “That includes the Federal Reserve regional bank surveys as well as private surveys. We have considerable reason to believe that there are no longer enough full-time jobs for all the people who want them. The vast majority of those who entered the labor market in August were not able to find full-time jobs.”
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The report also featured a number of downward revisions, with the total number of jobs added in June being revised from 185,000 to 105,000 and the number of jobs added in July being reduced from 187,000 to 157,000, according to the BLS.
In another sign of slowing growth, yearly real Gross Domestic Product, a measure of economic growth, was revised down Wednesday for the second quarter of 2023 from 2.4% to 2.1%.
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