Laid-Off Workers Settle for Part-time Jobs

http://www.aarp.org/work/job-hunting/info-06-2011/underemployed-workers.html

by: Carole Fleck | from: AARP Bulletin | June 1, 2011

Half a salary is better than none. And these days, it takes 50-year-old Phil Bookfor three part-time jobs just to earn that.

After 17 years at the Tropicana Casino and Resort in Atlantic City, N.J., where he worked as a supervisor making $48,000 a year, Bookfor got laid off in 2007. He's been unable to land a full-time job since. So he works as a waiter at two restaurants and as a concierge at a convention center — sometimes all in the same week.

"It's hard to juggle three jobs," says Bookfor, who credits his gym routine with keeping him fit, energetic and upbeat. "One calls you to come in, another calls you on the same day and you can't go, so they think they can't depend on you. It's tough."

Welcome to the new post-recession labor landscape. Since December 2007, U.S. employers have shed 8.7 million jobs, and as of April had added back only about 1.8 million. Consequently, older and younger workers alike are increasingly forced to accept part-time or temporary jobs in lieu of full-time work, or take full-time positions inappropriate to their skill level and previous pay grade.

To make ends meet, laid-off managers now work as cashiers. Unemployed teachers are delivering pizzas. Engineers are fixing computers. These are the underemployed, and according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), their growth as a group is unprecedented.

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Many economists say the underemployment rate is a truer gauge of the nation's job situation than the unemployment rate alone. While unemployment has dropped to 9 percent, the underemployment rate has hardly budged, and remains at 19 percent, according to the Gallup polling and research firm.

How underemployment is defined often depends on which group is tracking it. Generally, it implies work that's inappropriate to a worker's education and qualifications. Gallup classifies the underemployed as those who are jobless or working part time but want full-time work. To the BLS, the definition also includes unemployed people who were so discouraged that they stopped looking for jobs.

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She also concluded that being overqualified, underpaid or working part time will likely have long-term consequences on a worker's marketability, self-confidence and future earnings.

"When you take a job out of your area of expertise or at a lower level, it can damage your career and affect your lifetime earnings potential. If you're at the latter end of your career cycle, you may never make that up."

There are more underemployed workers now than in any other economic downturn in the last 30 years. The BLS recently analyzed the rise in underemployment after the last four recessions — 1981-1982, 1990-1991, 2001 and 2007-2009. In the two years following the latest recession, the number of underemployed rose by 107 percent, from 4.2 million to 8.7 million. By contrast, after each of the previous recessions, the number rose by 33 percent to 41 percent.

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Today's economy has been notably hard on older workers. As of April, unemployed workers under 55 had on average been jobless for 39 weeks. For those 55 and older, the duration exceeded one year.

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Age discrimination among hiring personnel is surely a factor, says Rix. The longer older adults are out of work, she adds, the harder it is for them to push back into the labor pool.

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