Involuntary part-time workers aren’t happy

July 31, 2015

Charles Dickens’ famous phrase opening “A Tale of Two Cities” — It was the best of times, it was the worst of times — lends itself to a new study by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development.

Professor Carl Van Horn and his colleagues at Rutgers University this spring did an in-depth survey of 944 workers, 504 of whom were involuntary part-time workers and 440 who were part-timers by choice. They were a sample of the 26 million Americans who hold part-time jobs.

The survey found that most of the part-timers were happy with their work lives.

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