EuroIR

May 06, 2009

Since the fall of 2007, the number of employees forced to work part-time due to the economic slowdown has doubled to over nine million people – that’s two million more than at any time in 54 years of collecting the data. You can see the spike in the chart above.

You can also see a close correlation between the start of a recession and a sharp shift to using part-time workers. And, conversely, that when an economy recovers, the use of part-time workers falls off quickly.

Lesson of the day? This is one of the few reliable indicators of an economic turnaround… watch it closely. Until you see a distinct reversal in the indicator, ignore the government’s happy talk of green shoots and continue to rig for stormy economic weather.