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| State | Candidate | Delegates |
|---|---|---|
 Donald Trump | ||
Pennsylvania |  Joe Biden |
Season of part-time jobs kicks off with holidays
— -- Lloyd Slocum was unemployed for 18 months, but like hundreds of thousands of Americans, he's working part time this holiday shopping season, unloading trucks and stocking shelves for a Bealls store in Port St. Lucie, Fla.
"It gives you something to look forward to," says Slocum, 29.
He plans to use the cash to buy his father a Christmas present and hopes to parlay the gig into a full-time position with Bealls/Burke's stores, a Sunbelt chain.
Black Friday, the official start of the holiday shopping frenzy, also kicks off the less-celebrated season of the part-time worker. Retailers alone are hiring about 500,000 seasonal employees this year, most of whom are part time, according to the National Retail Federation. Retailers' recent shift to opening on Thanksgiving or midnight on Black Friday has intensified the need for part-time workers.
Holiday jobs offer financial and emotional lifelines for many of the nation's jobless. They also point up a troubling reality: A near-record number of Americans are working part time throughout the year, even though they would prefer full-time jobs. It's not just because of the sluggish economy. Economists cite a broader, longer-term shift toward part-time work as employers cut expenses and more precisely match staffing with the ebbs and flows of customer demand.
The number of part-timers who really want full-time positions — so-called involuntary part-time employees — has risen from 8.4 million in January to 8.9 million last month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The total has hovered at 8.5 million to 9 million since early 2009 — double the pre-recession level.
By contrast, the tally of unemployed Americans has stayed flat at about 13.9 million this year and is down from about 15 million in late 2009 as employers have added a modest 2 million or so jobs. The disparity underscores how the nation's official 9% jobless rate doesn't fully reflect the toll inflicted by a half-speed economic recovery.
"The unemployment rate significantly misses the stress that the job market is under," says Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Analytics.
To be sure, part-time work — defined by the Labor Department as fewer than 35 hours a week — provides sorely needed income and experience that often can be leveraged into full-time jobs. And it's far preferable to unemployment. But it also creates financial uncertainty and instability for workers, economists say, and can keep employees in a cycle that prevents them from advancing to more lucrative positions. Most part-time workers don't get benefits, such as health insurance, sick days or paid vacation.
The number of part-time workers shot up three years ago when businesses cut employees' hours as a precursor to massive layoffs in the recession. Many firms are still trimming their employees' workweeks amid tepid customer demand. Typically, those hours are restored when sales pick up.
Last month, however, 30% of the 8.9 million involuntary part-time workers simply couldn't find full-time work, up from 20% in early 2009. That indicates many employers are hiring new workers as demand rises but are leery of adding full-time staff in a wobbly economy, experts say.
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