All-time Record Level of People Working Two Part-time Jobs

There are a number of ways to examine the monthly Employment Situation data. This column has addressed the November Jobs Report numbers, seasonally adjusted and non-seasonally adjusted, the Four Presidents at 94 Months, The Jobs Sector data, and now the multiple Job Holder data. We have seen record or near record levels of people working two part-time jobs all year long. We have also seen near record or record levels of people working two jobs all year long. Normally we see record levels of people working two part-time jobs during October or December of a given year. We hit the all-time record for multiple part-time jobs holders this month - ever - and no real mention of it in the media.

We have over Eight Million people working Two jobs right now. We saw an increase in the number of people working two jobs during 2005, 2006, and 2007 right before the recession. None of those years did the number exceed eight million people working two jobs. We saw this number drop significantly during the recession. It was fortunate for these people that that had multiple jobs prior to the recession because they may have had one job during the recession. This is not the highest level we have ever had of people working two jobs - during the month of November or during any given month of the year. The highest level of dual job workers during November, and for any month,  was November of 1996 when we had 8.494 million workers working two jobs.

We have 2.287 Million workers working two-part-time jobs. The highest November level was 2.127 million dual PT workers during November 2014.The highest level of dual part-time workers ever, prior to this month, was 2.172 million dual part-time workers during October of 2014. WE have had over two million dual PT workers during every month this year other than June and July. This months level was a jump of 172,000 dual PT workers over last month.  We lost 628,000 FT jobs and gained 678,000 PT jobs last month . This means that roughly one in four part-time jobs created last month went to someone who was already working a part-time job.

The Trend is Upward - Will We Hit Another Record Next Month? This is not a new trend. It probably started during the beginning of the housing recession. You could even argue that it started during 1999 and 2000 during the prior recession.  Could this surge in dual part-time workers be a response to the Affordable Care Act? Could this surge in people working part-time jobs be a precursor to the next recession?If October was not the peak month, December Could be - for this year.

It's the economy.