Record August Level of Workers Working Two Full-time Jobs

This year this column has been addressing the record levels of people working two part-time jobs. It is believed that we are seeing these elevated levels of part-time workers in order to avoid having to provide Affordable Care Act health benefits. It is also believed that there will be a rude awakening when employers realize that the ACA calculates the requirements of the law on a 2080 work hour year and that full-time employees are those who work over 1560 hours. You could have an all-part-time workforce and be required to provide benefits or pay the penalties.  This month we saw an increase over last year of people working multiple jobs. We almost had 4 million people working two part-time jobs. We had a record level of people working two full-time Jobs.

This was the first August since August 1994 when there were over 2 million people working two full-time jobs. The first time we saw over 2 million people working 2 full-time jobs recorded was during April of 2009.  It took until 2012 until we saw over 2 million dual full-time workers. This year we have seen over 2 million dual full-time workers during February, March, April and May.  Are these seasonal full-time jobs?

We had nearly 2 million People working two Part-time Jobs. This year we have seen record levels of dual part-time workers for the respective months during  February, March, April and May, as well as July. The number of people working two part-time jobs is up 297,000 workers over last August. It is not quite at the recent peak August level of August 2008.

We have the highest level of Dual Job workers for the month of August since August 2008. We saw a drop in the number of people working two jobs during the recession. The number of people working two jobs  has hit the 8 million mark during 1999 and 2004. We have exceed 7 million people working two jobs since September of last year. 

We have seen an all-time low of August people working a Primary part-time job and secondary Full-time job. The Jobs Report does not officially track this number. They track the number of people working multiple jobs, Full-time Primary, Part-time Secondary, Two full-time jobs and two part-time jobs. When those three categories are combined they do not equal the total number of people working multiple jobs. This column has calculated that difference and attributes it to people whose primary job is a part-time job and have a secondary full-time job. These people must make more money at their part-time jobs than their full-time jobs. This category dropped by 119,000 workers last month.

We know that the number of part-time jobs declined by over 1 million jobs during the month of August.  If the number of FT and PT job workers increased by 159,000, and the number of people working two part-time jobs increased by 297,000, and 119,000 people with a primary PT job lost jobs then most of those part-time job losses probably happened for people only working part-time jobs.

We are not going to see a jump in unemployment claims if people are losing one of two or more jobs. We may not know when a recession has started if all we do is look at the first-time claims numbers.

The economy is more than just one number or one report.