97 percent of 2013 job growth is only part-time work

The unemployment rate is measured by the separate Household Survey, and it fell two-tenths of a percentage point to 7.4 percent, its lowest level since December 2008. That’s due in part to slow growth in the labor force. The jobless rate is based on a sample of self-reporting from ordinary people across the nation, and it’s the Labor Department measure that shows a very troubling trend in hiring.

 “Over the last six months, of the net job creation, 
97 percent of that is part-time work,” 

said Keith Hall, a senior researcher at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center.
“That is really remarkable.” Hall is no ordinary academic. He ran the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the agency that puts out the monthly jobs report, from 2008 to 2012. Over the past six months, he said, the Household Survey shows 963,000 more people reporting that they were employed, and 936,000 of them reported they’re in part-time jobs. “That is a really high number for a six-month period,” Hall said. “I’m not sure that has ever happened over six months before.”

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