Member Article

More people in part-time jobs

The recession has forced almost a million people to take a part-time job because they cannot find full-time work, according to official figures.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said that in the three months to May 927,000 people said they were working part time because could not find a full-time job.

The figure is a third more than a year ago and is the highest number since the ONS began collating the data in 1992.

The TUC said these people were “the masked tragedies of the recession”.

“These people won’t be showing up in the spiralling unemployment figures but the economic slowdown and their subsequent move into part time work will have forced many of these families to rein in their spending dramatically,” said TUC general secretary Brendan Barber.

“While it’s better for these million people to be in a job than have no job at all, many will have downshifted and will be doing the same jobs that they once did full time, but for a fraction of the pay,” he added.

The ONS said that 12.5% of all part-time workers were unwillingly working fewer hours.

The percentage fell below 8% in the early years of this decade, but it is now almost as high as the recession in the early 1990s when the rate reached 14%.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .