Jobs Sleight-of-Hand

We shall begin with a model economy, one in which the total number of working hours per week is held constant. This allows for a continuation of a particular level of productivity. Let us set the required number of work hours per week at 40 million. In past, that would imply a number of workers in 40-hour-per-week positions of one million. As the massive business tax increase known as Obamacare looms, businesses seek to avoid that tax by reducing the number of hours worked per worker per week to 30. To make up the difference of 10 million working hours per week, it is necessary to create new jobs. The amount of working hours per week needed (10 million) divided by the new standard work week of 30 hours implies just over 333,000 new jobs at 30 hours per week.

Of the highly touted 162,000 new jobs created recently, something north of 120,000 were part-time positions. (I rounded down to 120,000 to make the calculation easier … the actual number of part-time positions is closer to 138,000, out of that 162,000). Either number (120K or 138K) may well have been jobs that appeared to fill the shortfall that occurred when existing full-time jobs were reduced to part-time jobs. Even if that is not the case, 120,000 new 30-hour-per-week jobs equates to only 90,000 full-time jobs. Subtracting the difference (30,000) from the alleged 162,000 new jobs created leaves 132,000 new jobs, not 162,000.

The job market is not "improving" or even "solid." It is sickly.

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NOTES:

Affordable health care. Yeah, that’s the problem. It’s not like the monetary system itself is flawed or anything. [Point of Orgasm] [p]

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