Part-timers in Arizona having tough time finding full-time employment
Nearly 30% in job class in state unable to gain more hours, benefits
Arizona has one of the highest rates of underemployed workers in the nation — a situation that can keep people in poverty, lacking benefits and facing other financial problems, according to a new Federal Reserve report.
In Arizona, 29 percent of part-time workers said they’d prefer full-time employment but haven’t been able to find it, according to the report released Tuesday by researcher Leilani Barnett of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
Nationally, 21 percent of part-time workers were in that status involuntarily, according to the study, citing 2014 data. Only Nevada and California had higher rates of involuntary parttime workers, at 33 percent and 30 percent.
Women overall are more likely to work part time compared with men, but African-American and Latina women are far more likely to do so involuntarily because of an inability to find fulltime employment, the report said.
The report gleaned responses in 2016 from people living in different areas of the West.
Participants at a Phoenix roundtable discussion told researchers that employers are concerned about having to offer health and other benefits to fulltime employees and that the Affordable Care Act has negatively impacted small-business owners.
The legislation, which Republicans in Congress have tried to repeal, requires businesses with 50 or more fulltime workers to provide health insurance to most workers and many of their dependents, or pay a fee.
The roundtable was held in August at a Phoenix office of Arizona@Work, a workforce development network. About 17 people attended.
Participants in other geographic areas raised different concerns. For example, respondents in roundtable discussions held in California complained that automation and e-commerce are driving out part-time jobs.
They cited self-service kiosks at grocery and other retail stores that reduce the number of cashiers and bag clerks. The California respondents also expressed concern over store closures last year by Macy’s and other retailers. (Macy’s didn’t announce any store closures in Arizona.)
The report estimated that 6 million Americans were working part time involuntarily in 2014. It’s unclear whether recent momentum in the labor market has changed that. One jobs measure known as the labor participation rate has improved gradually in recent months.
The poverty rate for part-time workers was 19 percent in 2014, the same rate as for jobless people — and well above the 3.9 percent poverty rate for full-time workers.
“Part-time employment may not offer much benefit over unemployment,” the report said.
Among other themes, part-time workers struggle with housing, transportation and child-care costs, the report noted. Businesses, meanwhile, often prefer to hire part-time workers to minimize outlays for health-care insurance, worker-compensation insurance and costs, including those tied to rising minimum wages.
In Phoenix, roundtable participants, who were not identified in the report, told researchers that while jobs are available in health care, hospitality and retail fields, the positions are largely part time.
Another discussion topic was that employers here often face challenges filling jobs in call centers and elsewhere because of applicants’ criminal backgrounds, immigration status, lack of high school diplomas and low job skills.