The Law of Unintended Consequences - Exhibit A: ObamaCare & Part-Time Jobs

Hello everyone - 

One thing that has always fascinated me has been the Law of Unintended Consequences - as when a government initiates a given policy intending to do good things but unexpectedly finds a negative outcome from the same act. 

Regardless how you feel about Obamacare, it may just be unintentionally driving a very bad thing in the economy - and unfortunately, this seems to be under-reported (I follow the news closely and I was stunned to see the numbers that follow). 

Here's the issue with Obamacare - employers are only forced to offer health insurance to their FULL-TIME EMPLOYEES defined as those who work more than 30 hours/week. So, if you're an employer that doesn't want to offer health care to your employees - (and pay a fine because of it) - you simply can cut their hours to less than 30/week to avoid footing the bill for their health insurance. 

The Obamacare rules don't take effect yet (they were delayed by one year to start in 2015) - but here's some data that should be very concerning….

1. The # of hourly employees working 30-34 hours/week DROPPED by 146,500/month over the past year
2. The # of hourly employees working 25-29 hours/week INCREASED by 119,000/month over the past year... and the kicker….
3. Of ALL NEW JOBS CREATED in the US in the Jan-July 2013 time frame (955,000), an incredible 77% (731,000) were part-time and only 23% (222,000) full-time.
4. To compare to 2012, when there were 1.4 M jobs created, 53% were part-time and 47% full-time - so the trend to offer mostly part-time jobs really started back in '12 and has really picked up steam!

SO - you'll hear the 'good news" reported in the news media, that unemployment rate is down to 7.4% and the economy is improving - but is it really? The reality is so different …..

Here's the bottom line….

The US full-time job growth situation is in FREE-FALL.

The part-time job growth is in great shape! 

Is the US becoming a nation of part-time employees? 

We'll have more blogs on the impact of Obamacare in future issues….

Enjoy your day all,

Kevin