From the Telegraph: Almost a million people are being forced to work part-time because they cannot get a full-time job, according to official figures that shed light on the hidden cost of the recession for thousands of families.
In the past year more than 250,000 extra people who would like to be in full-time employment have found themselves working four days a week or fewer, according to the Office for National Statistics.
This is an increase of more than a third on the previous year, and illustrates the extent to which companies are trying to cope with the downturn by reducing staff hours, rather than just laying them off.
When Britain’s biggest accountancy firm KPMG offered employees the opportunity to move to a four-day week, 86 per cent of staff signed up. Many of the City’s biggest law firms, including Norton Rose, are staffed by some part-time workers.
Manufacturers including Ford, Honda and JCB have also asked staff to work reduced hours.
The latest statistics indicate that, between March and May this year, a record 927,000 individuals were working fewer than 30 hours a week because they could not find a full-time job, a rise of 38 per cent on last year.
The figures include new employees who have been hired on a part-time basis and existing staff who have been offered reduced hours.
Separate figures released last week showed that unemployment had jumped to 2.38 million, with economists predicting it was inevitable that the total would exceed three million, matching the job crises of the early-1990s and 1980s.
The ONS employment figures, which have been collected since 1992, also suggest that far more pensioners are working than a year ago, as thousands of people are forced to defer their retirement because their pension pots have been hit by the falls in the stock market.
In the three months to May there were 1.36 million people of pensionable age working, an increase of 45,000 on last year.
More than half of Britain’s workers spend between 31 and 45 hours at work per week, according to the ONS figures.
The remainder are almost equally divided between those working between 16 and 30 hours a week and those working more than 45 hours a week. John Philpott, of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, said: “The 255,000 extra people who are now working part-time because they cannot find a full-time job is a big increase on last year.”
But he added: “It is a temporary phenomenon relating to the recession and once the labour market is in better health, there will be a shift among part-time workers back into full time work.”
Tell that to the people that can’t afford their mortgages or to feed their kids.
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