Utah has one of the highest ratios of part-time to full-time employment in the country. In 2012, almost one in four (24.7 percent) employed Utahns worked 35 hours or less, according to the Department of Workforce Services. That’s roughly 327,000 people out of a total of about 1.33 million employed workers. By contrast, 19.4 percent (one in five) of all people with jobs in the U.S. were part-timers last year.
The percentage of Utahns employed in part-time jobs has come up sharply since 2007, when the figure was 20 percent and the Great Recession was about to start. Experts are trying to understand why the ratio of full to part-time employment has narrowed so much since then, and what it means. On the surface, it looks like the vaunted jobs recovery that’s taken place in Utah since the recession ended isn’t as stellar as everyone from Gov. Gary Herbert to the media have portrayed it.
But James Robson, an economist at the Workforce Services department, notes that the 2012 figure isn’t high by historical standards. As recently as 2004, the percentage was 25.4 percent, and the average since 2000 is 23.4 percent.
What’s more, the 2007 figure was the lowest percentage since at least 1997.
Robson said Utah’s unique demographic makeup is probably behind the large percentage of Utah’s employed labor force who work part-time. It may also account for the large gap between Utah and U.S. part-time employment rates, he said.
"We do have the youngest population in the country. Part of that gap [between Utah and the U.S.] would be explained by teens in the labor force. Between the ages of 16 and 24, we have many more young people who would tend to have part-time jobs," he said.
Robson extends that thinking a step further. At 3.1 people, the average size of a Utah household is the largest in the nation. With lots of children at home, many Utah women have a "propensity" to seek part-time employment, he said. Slightly more than one in three (35 percent) working Utah women has a part-time job. By contrast, across the U.S., 26 percent work less than 35 hours.
Natalie Gochnour, the Salt Lake Chamber’s chief economist and associate dean of the University of Utah’s business school, said the cost of supporting Utah’s large family sizes "requires" many mothers to work outside their homes. Salt Lake Tribune
