‘Masked Tragedies’

Nearly a million people in the UK have been forced into part time jobs because they can’t find full time work during the recession, official figures from the Office for National Statistics show.

According to the statistics, in the three months until May this year, around 927,000 people have had to take on part time positions because they couldn’t find full time ones. This is a third more than a year ago and the highest number since the ONS began its collecting data in 1992.

According to the TUC, these people are the “masked tragedies of the recession” because they aren’t turning up on unemployment records.

 TUCs general secretary Brendan Barber said: “These people won’t be showing up in the spiralling unemployment figures but the economic slowdown and their subsequent move into part time work will have forced many of these families to rein in their spending dramatically.”

“While it’s better for these million people to be in a job than have no job at all, many will have downshifted and will be doing the same jobs that they once did full time, but for a fraction of the pay.”

Reduced Working Hours Unwanted

As the recession continues to effect the economy, many companies have asked their staff to take reduced working hours. This includes bigger companies like British Airways who have asked many of their employees to take part time work or unpaid leave.

According to the ONS, 12.5% of part time workers do not want to work fewer hours. This is compared to only 8% saying the same thing earlier this decade. This figure is nearly as high as the last recession in the early 1990s when the rate reached 14%

This comes after news last week that unemployment rose by record amounts in the three months leading up to May, to reach 2.38 million.

The number of unemployed also increased by 7.6%, which is the highest in over a decade.

Those claiming unemployment benefit also increased by nearly 24,000 last month to reach 1.56 million. This is actually slightly lower than was initially predicted by analysts.

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